On a shelf in the chambers of the U.S. District Judge J. Michelle Childs is a sculpture of a large elephant using its trunk to pull up a smaller elephant. A gift from a former clerk, the piece is a symbol of an often-cited phrase by the judge: “Hold the ladder down” so others may climb up.

Childs, whose chambers are in Columbia, South Carolina, has been “holding the ladder down” in multiple ways in her professional and personal lives, according to former clerks and others.