Colleen Melody said she’s done interviews for two jobs in the past 12 years. Bob Ferguson conducted both.

About a decade ago, Ferguson, then Washington’s attorney general, chose her to lead his office’s new civil rights unit devoted to investigating and enforcing anti-discrimination laws.

On Monday, Ferguson, now governor, named Melody as Washington’s newest state Supreme Court justice.

Melody, 43, will succeed Justice Mary Yu, who announced her retirement in September.

“Anyone who has had any interaction with Colleen in a legal setting would all agree that she has a brilliant legal mind,” Ferguson said at a news conference in the Supreme Court chambers at the Temple of Justice in Olympia.

Melody said “the toughest question” in the hiring process was why she wanted to leave a job she

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