Judge Ginger Lerner-Wren was elected Broward County Court judge, (17th Judicial Circuit, Florida) in 1997. As judge, she pioneered America’s first specialized Mental Health Court dedicated to the decriminalization and diversion of persons arrested with mental illness and neuro-cognitive disorders, from a dignity, human rights, and recovery framework. The Court is a national and global model, and has diverted over 23,000 women and men out of Broward County’s Jail. Judge Wren is a professor at Nova Southeastern University (NSU) College of Psychology and Neuroscience, and NSU Criminal Justice Institute. She is an author, “A Court of Refuge: Stories from the Bench of America’s First Mental Health Court."