Miami-Dade County Court Judge Shelley Kravitz, a past president of the statewide conference of county court judges and a longtime chair of the county canvassing board, died Tuesday after 25 years on the bench. She was 64.

“She was of the highest level of ethics as a judge,” said Miami-Dade County Court Judge Carroll Kelly, the administrative judge of the domestic violence division. “She was kind and sweet and thoughtful. You never heard a bad word come out of her mouth — she was the consummate lady.”

Kravitz died of heart disease, according to the Miami-Dade County Medical Examiner's Office.

A Miami Beach native, Kravitz was born in an elevator at the old Mount Sinai Medical Center. “Her mother did not make it to the obstetrics room,” according to a 2005 Miami Beach Commission memo recognizing Kravitz as a “Woman Worth Knowing.”

She graduated from Antioch College in Ohio in 1975 and the University of Miami School of Law in 1982. She was a public school teacher before becoming a lawyer, and served as special master for Miami Beach.

“She continued to show her love for children by being involved in the court's educational activities for visiting school groups,” Miami-Dade Circuit Chief Judge Bertila Soto said in a statement. “She will be greatly missed by all of us here.”

Kravitz was appointed to the bench in 1993, going on to work in the domestic violence and criminal divisions and, most recently, in the civil division. She was a leader, not only by teaching trial skills to new judges, but by also leading Florida's conference of county court judges and serving as a liaison between judges and the Legislature. Kravitz also chaired the Miami-Dade County Canvassing Board and led the Miami-Dade chapter of the Florida Association for Women Lawyers.

“She was passionate about individual rights and people having their day in court,” said Kelly, who knew Kravitz for 20 years. “She was passionate about the electoral system and ensuring that elections were free and open and fair in our country, and particularly in our county.”

Miami-Dade County Judge Caryn Schwartz said Kravitz never applied to be a circuit judge, instead staying on the county bench, where judges tend to deal less with lawyers and more with unrepresented parties.

“I'm sure that she loved doing that, because you're interacting more with the community, the public, in many ways,” Schwartz said.

Kravitz's friends also remembered her as an animal lover who enjoyed spending time with and dressing up her dog.

“She was a vegetarian,” Schwartz said. “My husband, [Larry Schwartz], who is a retired circuit judge and knew her quite well also, said that the only meat she would eat would be stone crab claws because they didn't have to kill the crab to get the claws.”

Kravitz spent much of her time in recent years caring for her aging parents. Her mother died a few years ago, but her father is still alive, and Kravitz spent most of her weekends in Weston caring for him.

“Talk about giving of yourself,” Schwartz said. ”It took up a tremendous amount of her time — what an amazing daughter.”

Kelly remembers traveling to a judicial conference with Kravitz, where the two saw a judge whose son had just died.

“She was crying on the way up there: 'How do you address a parent that loses a child?'” Kelly said. “I saw her with him about two hours later. She was holding his hand and he was holding hers, and they were sobbing. Then they were hugging, and then I saw a smile come on his face from the tender words she was sharing with him.

“That's the essence of Shelley: always being caring and thoughtful and reaching out to people and trying to do whatever she could do to make them feel better.”

Kravitz was divorced from former Miami and Miami Beach city manager Jose Garcia-Pedrosa and had no children.