Karla M. Gray

Karla Marie Gray (1947 – 2017) was an American attorney and judge who served as the chief justice of the Montana Supreme Court; she was the first woman to serve as Chief Justice and to be elected to the Montana Supreme Court. Background Gray was born in Escanaba, Michigan. She attended Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo from 1965–1970, earning a B.A. and an M.A. in African history. She then moved to California, working as a clerk matron at the Mountain View Police Department. She received a J.D. in 1976 from Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco, where she was an editor of the Hastings Law Journal. After law school, she moved to Butte, Montana, where she served as a law clerk for Senior United States District Court Judge William Daniel Murray. Law career After her clerkship ended in 1977, Gray practiced law as in-house corporate counsel for Atlantic Richfield and the Montana Power Company as well as in a solo practice. During the 1980s, she was a lobbyist at the Montana Legislature, representing the Montana Trial Lawyers Association, Montana Power Company and related interests.