Four years later, they made it legal. "I have a sarcastic wit and so does she," says Dubow, Mayor Nutter's first cabinet appointment. "We both enjoy life's ironies."

Mama and Papa Beck met in 1948 at a party at Brown, his alma mater. She was an undergraduate; he was an M.D. fresh out of Yale Medical School.

Married 57 years, what is the key to their success? "I'll be damned if I know," says the missus.

Bonding among Beck women extends beyond the immediate family. Every year, about a dozen aunts, nieces and granddaughters take a spa vacation together, courtesy of Phyllis Beck and her sister-in-law.

Along with manicures and massages, there are late-night talks, leisurely walks, vigorous workouts, line-dancing classes. And lots of laughs.

"It's so much fun. The best part is hearing all the stories," says Dubow's cousin, Barbara Whitman, 49, a Broadway producer (Legally Blonde).

Speaking of fun, Dubow's path to the bench was cherry pie compared with her mother's ordeal.

With four kids at home, Beck took night classes at Temple Law School. She finished first in her 1967 graduating class, which included five women and 75 men. Off campus, she was discouraged at every turn.

Acquaintances accused her of abandoning her family. Her pediatrician said her kids "would end up in the gutter." A man in her synagogue told her that "they wouldn't remember the smell of chicken soup on Friday night."

By comparison, Dubow had no children when she attended Penn Law School. In her 1984 graduating class, 76 of 141 were women.

Dubow began her career as a commercial litigator. Seven years later, in 1992, she was named deputy city solicitor under Mayor Ed Rendell. In 2000, after two years of tax law, she went to Drexel.

There was no "defining moment" for her judicial quest, Dubow says. It was a gradual process.

"As a lawyer, the valued skills are looking at a situation in black and white and doing what's best for your client. As a judge, you look at the entire picture. The longer I practiced law, the more I realized my personality was more like a judge's."

Says Beck of her fourth-born: "She's fair and honest and smart - all wonderful qualities of a good judge."

Dubow had put in years of preparation, negotiating squabbles between her son, Benjamin, now 19 and a sophomore at Penn, and daughter, Rebecca, 16, a junior at Delaware Valley Friends School.

"I had to make credibility calls and impose punishment," she says. "It reinforced my ability to have a sense of both sides of an argument and to not take anything at face value. I could always tell who was lying."

To prepare for her campaign, Dubow took off a full year. In May, she won both the Democratic and GOP primaries. The following month, Gov. Rendell appointed her to fill a vacancy in Family Court. In November, she was elected to a full 10-year term.

Dubow says her judicial philosophy is similar to that of her parenting.

"On the one hand, people should know what the rules are and that there are consequences for breaking them. On the other hand, they shouldn't be horrendous consequences.