Across the past two decades, approximately 300 legal opinions have flowed from the pen of Judge Robert “Pat” Doherty , detailed rulings on cases involving everything from divorces to rear-end collisions to malicious woundings.

Doherty, who retires today from the 23rd Judicial Circuit, said he has written 15 to 20 opinions a year since he took the bench 18 years ago. But last week, there was just one item — a custody dispute — left on his “to do” list.

“Sometimes you sit down and it just flows. And other times, it’s like pulling teeth,” he said of the work. He estimated that he spends an average of 32 hours on each case he writes about, synthesizing courtroom testimony, evidence and arguments to form his conclusion.

“They take a while, because I take a lot of notes,” he said, a habit that began in law school and has clearly continued deep into his legal career: A little more than a week ago, thin stacks of heavy-bond legal paper were neatly arranged on his desk, each page filled — save for the left-hand margins — with Doherty’s tight, black cursive and occasional footnotes in red ink.

Just a few days later, he had transformed his sprawl of freehand into a typed 12-page opinion, a legal reference that will remain available in the circuit long after he has left.

“One of the reasons why I write is, if I can explain something simple enough that even a lawyer or a judge can understand, and it’s printed out … they won’t have that problem in the future,” he said.

Circuit court judges aren’t always required to compose opinions, but those documents can often clarify their thoughts, particularly in civil decisions, said Carl Tobias , a Richmond law professor.

“People are often unhappy with their resolution, so I think a judge needs to be especially careful that litigants have as clear an explanation of their decision as possible.”

“I think to the extent judges have time, it’s valuable to do that,” Tobias said.

Prior to his judgeship, Doherty, 68, worked as a prosecutor, then as a defense attorney, for years.

“He practiced a good bit of criminal law,” said Roanoke County Commonwealth’s Attorney Randy Leach . “It’s good to have somebody with that life experience that understands what the lawyers are going through.”

Doherty replaced Judge Kenneth Trabue in 1995 and worked out of Roanoke’s courthouse until 2002. Since then, he has split his work week evenly between Roanoke County and Salem, toting his files between jurisdictions in two worn leather briefcases, one of which has been with him since he studied at the University of Richmond in the early 1970s.

In the two offices he now occupies, cabinets and ring-binders are neatly filled with the materials — reams of bright yellow legal paper, all bearing his handwriting — that he has used to form his hundreds of opinions.

“I’ve probably got 15 feet of notes stacked in Roanoke County and Salem,” he said.

“They call him a court reporter,” said Bonnie Hager , his longtime assistant. “His notes are so good and so extensive, lawyers come by at least two or three times a week to use them.”

Attorneys are free to copy them by hand, if they like, but aren’t allowed to borrow them, make photocopies of them or share them with clients. Doherty said that once he leaves, he’ll have all but the past three years’ worth of this work taken to a furnace and incinerated.

Disposing of his archive and moving on is in keeping with his practical, unsentimental approach.

Doherty said he doesn’t rank or rate old cases on either side of the bench, or see any one as particularly more memorable than another.

“I try my best at everything I do. All of these cases are really important to somebody,” he said. “You go in and do this stuff every day … everything you do becomes relatively routine. Like a doctor working in an emergency room.

“If you don’t have this system, then anarchy is there,” he said. “The rule of law is necessary, and I see the judge as a vital part of that.

“The reason that the criminal defense lawyer goes in and represents somebody is not because he’s particularly trying to get the guy off. His actual reason is to make the government follow the rules,” he added. “When I’m sitting as a judge, I’m trying to be an arbitrator between the government and the people. I’m trying to see to it that all the rights guaranteed under the law and the constitution are correct.”

Hager, who began working with Doherty in 1977 when he was a defense attorney, and who will now work out of Roanoke’s courthouse, said that in addition to mediating, the judge also educates.

“The most important thing I can tell you is, he is a teacher and he absolutely loves to teach. You learn something brand-new every day,” she said.

“He’s always been a mentoring judge to young attorneys,” agreed Charlie Phillips , Doherty’s former law partner. “Of course, I didn’t need much of his mentoring.

“We practiced law 22 years and never had a harsh word or disagreement,” he said.

That trend continued even after Doherty went on the bench. For the most part.

“It was a little different [afterward]. But he always won. He’s got the robe,” Phillips said.

Doherty said that powerful black garment won’t be so difficult to hang up.

“I’ve got a basement full of tools,” he said. “I go by the used bookstore and I get a bag of books every other week. I read a lot. I read everything. Except lawyer books.”

As he spoke about retirement on one of his last days at work, Doherty took from his shirt pocket a 3-by-5-inch index card. One side of it was covered with his dark handwriting; the other decorated, somewhat incongruously, with a simple but precise sketch of Eeyore from “Winnie the Pooh.”

“We’ve got two grandchildren,” he explained. “When they were real little, they’d pull my notes out of my pockets and eat them. So I started drawing pictures and putting stickers on them.”

One grandson has aged out of that habit, but the other remains curious, and that mutual distraction has led Doherty to build a new archive, one of a sort quite different from his legal notes: He said he has filled four recipe boxes with his index card illustrations.

Despite the fact that his wife, Sherlie, taught art for years, Doherty confesses, “I never was able to draw anything. I was probably 62 or 63 when I made my first sketch. I was flabbergasted.

“I never knew I could do anything like that until my grandchildren started eating my notes,” he said.

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