As she approaches her 10th year as the leader of California’s judiciary, Tani Cantil-Sakauye, chief justice of the California Supreme Court, is enjoying decidedly better conditions than she did in her first years on the bench.

The state’s budget is flush, offering new judgeships and more money for a judicial branch that was hit by draconian spending cuts after Cantil-Sakauye was sworn in in 2010. The criticism leveled at her by fellow jurists early in her tenure—she was once deemed too bureaucratic by a group known as the Alliance of California Judges—has largely waned, and California’s new governor has showered her with public praise for “her leadership and her stubbornness” in lobbying for the judiciary.