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Veteran attorney Hugh Baker of the same law firm agrees. "She is very bright, grasps complex legal issues, and has control of her courtroom. At the same time, she engages in dialogue, listens well and remains quite human. That is to say, she maintains her sense of humor while having to carry out what is sometimes a very difficult job. And she's gracious and likable," praises the attorney who has practiced law in her courtroom.

The second of six children, Barker was born June 10, 1943, in Mishawaka, Ind., to electrical engineer James McCall Evans and teacher Sarah Yarborough Evans. "I was in the Number-Two-we-try-harder position. But if this shows up in print, my mother will laugh out loud because I was the one who did not try harder. I was the one that made my parents arch their eyebrows," she confesses, describing her family of four sisters and two brothers as "over-achievers."

One brother is a Methodist minister at Walkerton. One sister is a college professor in Spanish language. Another sister has her doctorate and does curriculum planning for a large suburban Detroit school system. "But my youngest sister lives here in Indianapolis. She has cerebral palsy. Amy is a special person," Barker brags affectionately. "Growing up, we all had special responsibilities because Amy was a special person. Especially my brother, who was right before her in age and helped a lot with her care. It changed our perspective on things and made us different people because we lived with her situation."

Barker knows about caring. Her parents took in her maternal Arkansas grandparents when they needed their oldest daughter to care for them. "Grammy and Grandpa Yarborough were an important influence in our lives. They were another set of parents to us. We had a good-sized house, but we were in there pretty close," she recalls, exhibiting her family's heritage of gracious Southern charm.

Sheep roamed the grounds of their country house located outside Mishawaka. And that's where Barker, who was a Bluebird (pre Camp Fire Girls), also became involved in 4-H. She remembers, "It was in those days before you could take any of the boys' projects like animals and carpentry. To me, those were the fun projects. But my mother made me take sewing and cooking. It was a hard-fought fight with me because I just didn't care about that stuff. But I did what I had to do in order to take sheep as a project one summer and some woodworking projects that I was much more interested in. I won some 4-H ribbons, but it was not my most glorious time of achievement. I'm still not a cooker or a sewer," she pleads guilty.

Arguably the most powerful woman in Indiana, she never dreamed of being a lawyer or a judge when she was a young girl. "I grew up back during a time when the roles were pretty stereotyped. We thought about teaching and nursing ... I thought I would be the wife of a minister or a doctor, the wife of someone who was visible because I could maintain a public profile all right," says the 5-foot-8-inch green-eyed brunette.

But she already was exhibiting leadership skills in high school. "I was student council vice-president, president of Y-Teens, sang in the choir, played in the band, and acted in school plays. As you can imagine, I was not the romantic lead but I had character roles in January Thaw and Thirteenth Chair," she recalls, cherishing the memories.

An obviously talented alto, she continued to sing at Indiana University as a member of the Singing Hoosiers. She was elected president of her dorm, Sycamore Hall, served on the I.U. Foundation, and worked part time. The social service major had only one goal her first two years at I.U Ñ "to get through school," she laughs. "I didn't have any real direction or a plan. I was like a cork on the ocean." That all changed during her junior year as the result of a conversation with Arden Muller, the head counselor in her dorm.

"She suggested that I go to law school. At the time, I thought that was an over-estimation of my abilities and I was sort of embarrassed that she suggested that. She might as well have said that I should be an astronaut because I didn't know any women who were lawyers. But very privately and very quietly, I explored the idea, went over to the library and got the bulletins for law schools to see what sorts of classes they took.

"And I found out what you had to do to apply. It was the first year that they were giving the LSAT, and when you took the LSAT, you had to give them the names of the schools you wanted the results sent to. And you had to pay a little money. Once you commit to that extent, you get a little invested. So I applied to American University Law School in Washington, D.C., and I got in," she reminisces.

During law school, she worked for the D.C. Parole Board and then became a legislative assistant for Congressman Gilbert Gude, R-Md. Upon graduation in 1969, she became a legislative assistant to Sen. Charles H. Percy, R-Ill. "I loved him and it was wonderful work," she exudes. "It was fast-paced and called on all my energy and abilities." In 1972, she served as the senator's director of research and director of scheduling and advance.

While working on the hill, she scheduled time with high school friend Ken Barker. "We didn't date in high school but we ran in the same pack. And we were good friends at I.U., where we went to movies or to the auditorium series ... but mostly as friends," she says, with eyes sparkling. Ken went on to Harvard Law School and then into the service before practicing law in Indianapolis. "We always stayed in touch all those years and when we reconnected, we discovered there was something else there."

After Sen. Percy's re-election, the Barkers married in Mishawaka on Nov. 25, 1972. Barker moved to Indianapolis that same year and became an assistant United States attorney, Southern District of Indiana. "After seeing that the first (highest ranking) woman in our law school class couldn't even get an interview with a law firm, I didn't even try. I went to work for the government because it has always been more accessible to newcomers on the basis of race and gender," she declares.

Two years later, she gave birth to the first of the Barkers' three children. Daughter Katie is now 26 and lives in Westchester County, New York. She is a conservator for the Textile Conservation Workshop of New York. Susan, who will be married in April, is 24 and lives in Chicago, where she is a consultant with Accenture. Twenty-one-year-old son Grady is a business and fine arts major at I.U.

Recently returned from a semester in Italy, the enthusiastic and personable Grady described the Barker household: "Mom is a great mom! She knows how to get things done and how to delegate the chores. Preparedness is a real thing with her and that carries over to her work." He recognizes that she intimidates anyone who is not prepared. "She likes order and she likes to be the one to get things done. And my Dad is great! While growing up, he was like 'Mr. Mom.' It was a big role reversal in the family but my friends thought it was neat."

So did Barker, whose career, like a preponderance of evidence, continued to add up. She was appointed the Southern District of Indiana's U.S. attorney in 1981, federal judge in 1984, and chief judge in 1994. But with three children, "the whole truth and nothing but the truth" was that something had to give at home. "So Ken assumed the responsibility of the children. He was the person on-site, the one who kept the center in the family," she praises the liberated man she calls her best friend.

Under cross-examination, Ken adoringly admits, "She's my best friend" With three children, my being 'Mr. Mom' gave her a level of freedom that she would not have had otherwise. On the other hand, I've had a level of freedom for intellectual pursuits that I normally wouldn't have had time for. So we freed each other up."

The hour-long commute to their Johnson County/Brown County line home is her stress-buster. "We live in a wonderfully, remote place and I can actually feel myself start to relax as I drive home," says Indiana's only female federal judge. The high energy, fast-talking Barker puts in killer days, but Ken has dinner ready for her when she arrives. She gets home so late that she doesn't trade her judicial robe for a lounging robe. "I just stay in my business attire until it's time to go to bed. "I married well!" she exudes of the man who listens to her day over dinner.

He says, "I had done litigation early in my career, so we speak the same language. Part of the comfort level is that we don't have to explain the concepts to each other."

Barker's comfort level also includes wearing jeans on weekends while helping Ken with outdoor projects. Her favorite chore is mowing the lawn around the pond, hills and ravines while perched on a riding lawn mower. The introspective Barker also devotes her rare spare time to singing in her church choir and doing volunteer work for the church.

"It's a small church and everybody has to pitch in. If the choir had high standards, I probably wouldn't qualify," laughs the religious jurist who undoubtedly agonized when she authorized the U.S. Marshals Service to use force as needed to take possession of the Indianapolis Baptist Temple. She ordered the Southside church to be sold to satisfy an unpaid tax judgment which totals about $6 million.

She's deadly serious about her sentencing duties. "You sense the gravity of the responsibility and it's gotten complicated under the sentencing guidelines," she laments. "Under those guidelines, you sometimes have to impose sentences that you wouldn't impose if you were left to your own judgment. But that's true of many laws. They might not be the Sarah Barker approach to something or another. And that's why we have a system of laws and not individuals."

She also has been on the losing end of the argument about having cameras in Indiana courtrooms. "Our court, and me as a part of that, participated in a pilot project a few years ago and I thought it was a successful experiment. I voted in favor of continuing that experiment, which gave the judge quite a lot of discretion and imposed real responsibilities on the media. But most of the judges on the judicial conference at that time thought that there were more disadvantages than advantages. And they voted not to have cameras in the courtroom. That is the judicial conference policy and we accept it," says the jurist who, as a federal judge, has a job for life.

As to why the U.S. Supreme Court doesn't have cameras in the courtroom, the conservative Republican says, "The Supreme Court is a traditional institution and they're not going to change quickly." There are those who have wondered out loud if Barker might someday be appointed a "Supreme," as the justices are jocularly called.

"If the opportunity came, I don't know very many people who would pass it by. Me included!" she says enthusiastically. "But the likelihood of my getting on the Supreme Court is very small. Usually the judges who go on to the Supreme Court are writing judges from the appellate courts. And I'm down here in the arena with the gladiators."

Barker, who earns $142,000 a year, refuses to make a federal case out of the rumors. But she says her career never has been a straight-line journey and that no one has been more surprised than she when things "turned up my way where I was able to grab at the brass ring." A very proud Arden Muller Fisher, the dorm counselor who suggested she go to law school, came from St. Louis to attend Barker's swearing-in as judge.

Barker's success didn't surprise her. She recognized the intellect, talent and ambition early on.

The judge may be a big wheel in the Firestone/Bridgestone case. But no one has to worry about it going to her head. Her fun family sees to that. "My brothers and sisters are interested in what I do but they're not particularly impressed. Being a federal judge hasn't changed the family dynamics. I wish it would sometimes because I could use a little more respect from that clan," she roars with laughter.

And then there's her 83-year-old mom, who asked, "Are you like Judge Judy?" Wait until the Firestone/Bridgestone lawyers hear that one!