Superior Court Judge Charles Dortch meets with Carmen Day, who told him 12 years when she was a teenager in his court that she wanted to be a lawyer when he reduced her probation sentence. She is one semester away from graduation.

Carmen Allen was in Camden County’s juvenile court pleading with the judge, telling him she regretted her mistake, that the young person before him wanted better for her life.

The 17-year-old girl had plans for college and law school, having been a good student throughout her academic career. She was embarrassed and sorry for what she had done, an unwise decision she won’t talk about.

“I want to be somebody someday,” Allen told Superior Court Judge Charles Dortch. “Maybe I’ll be a lawyer in your courtroom.”

That was 12 years ago, but her words carry a pleasant echo today. Allen, whose last name became Day when she married, is a 29-year-old mother of two daughters, and proudly one semester away from graduating from Dortch’s alma mater — Rutgers Law School in Camden.

Dortch, now the presiding judge of the family division, often encourages law students to visit his courtroom. Unbeknownst to him, Day was sitting there, among a small group, on Jan. 7. She waited 12 years for this moment to thank Dortch for giving her a chance when he reduced her probation sentence from 18 months to six in 2006.

After he met with the law students, Day asked to speak with him privately. She was emotional, trying to hold back the tears, explaining how he made a difference, and that he restored her faith in the criminal justice system.

“He didn’t see me as a docket number, or some poor girl from Camden,” Day said. “He saw me as a girl who needed help, who needed a chance.”

Dortch has met a lot people in his 14 years on the bench. Few stand out like Day. She was an articulate, serious and sincere teenager advocating for herself.

“She really stuck out in my mind,” Dortch said. “I saw a lot of perseverance in her face.” It was still there in his chambers as Dortch congratulated Day for the strength she had to overcome adversity.

“You made up your mind that you were going to control your environment and not let your environment control you,” Dortch said.

He then brought her into the courtroom to be recognized in front of prosecutors, public defenders and court staff.

“I could even say it made my career,” said Dortch.

Everyone in court clapped. They don’t see this every day, when the outcome is often just the opposite.

But Pamela Grayson-Baltimore, a social worker in the public defender’s office, knew something special was happening. She is a friend and mentor, whom Day confided to about her past and desire to meet the judge.

Grayson-Baltimore has worked in Dortch’s courtroom often. She advised Day to write him a letter and to follow up afterward.

“It’s exciting when somebody that you know has been through some stuff and you see them turn their lives around,” Grayson-Baltimore said.

The probation sentence Day received ended when she graduated high school in 2007. Her fresh start didn’t go so well, at first.

Day enrolled in Camden County College but dropped out twice. She had a job in 2008, her own apartment in 2009 and all of the responsibilities that come with adulthood.

“I put my education on the back burner. I was worried about the money,” she said.

But three years later, Day was back in school. She made a promise to finish this time when she enrolled at Burlington County Community College.

With an associate degree she earned in 2013, Day moved onto Rutgers University-Camden, where she double majored in political science and criminal justice, and graduated in 2015.

She still wanted to be a lawyer, a profession she learned about from her mom, and Maxine Shaw, a character played by Erika Alexander, who was an attorney on the comedy sitcom, “Living Single,” with Queen Latifah.

“That was the first lawyer I had known,” Day said. “She was one of my inspirations.”

Day took the Law School Admission Test (LSAT) in 2017 and didn’t do well, which dimmed her chances for Rutgers. She wasn’t discouraged.

It just meant her path would be different. Day said she was offered a conditional acceptance to law school if she completed a program that allowed her to attend Widener University Delaware Law School in Wilmington, DE. She did so, driving two hours a day, determined to get to Rutgers.

The whole time she thought about Dortch, remembering his name from juvenile court records she kept.

“I always knew I was going to reach back out to him,” she said.

The reunion, Dortch said, shows that every experience with the court is not awful. An inspirational Facebook post from Day is proof. It spread throughout the courthouse. More than 16,000 people have read it across the world, some from as far as Nigeria. Nearly 5,000 have shared it.

“It’s unbelievable,” Day said.

Your story touched my heart, too. Thank you for your truth and the following advice we can all use.

“No matter your circumstances, no matter what you are going through, as long as you stay focused, you can make it,” Day said.

“You are not what happened to you. You are what you choose to become.”