Philadelphia Judge Idee Fox has been selected as the new president judge for the First Judicial District.

Fox won a plurality of the vote Wednesday afternoon, with all but five of the 87 judges in Philadelphia submitting votes in the election.

“I am honored by the support of my colleagues,” Fox said Wednesday afternoon. “I ran against an extremely distinguished group, and every last one of them would have been excellent. I'm just so proud of the FJD.”

Fox, who is the first member of the LGBT community to hold the top leadership position, said her role as president judge will largely depend on what issues arise during her tenure, but she said she hopes to emphasize leadership training and transparency of the court during her time as president judge.

“We have a young bench in the sense of years on the court. A lot of judges have been serving less than 10 years, so looking to the future, it's important to look to leadership skills,” she said. “Part of my role is to prepare for the future.”

According to Philadelphia Judge Frederica Massiah-Jackson, who organized the election, 37 judges voted for Fox, 19 voted for Judge Ramy Djerassi, 12 voted for Judge George Overton, eight voted for Judge Paula Patrick and six voted for Judge Barbara McDermott.

Massiah-Jackson said she has “a lot of confidence” in Fox.

“We wish her well, and we know she'll do an excellent job,” she said.

In her new role, Fox's main duties will include implementing all locals rules adopted by the Board of Judges, working with the state Supreme Court to have senior judges assigned to help manage the caseload and assigning new judges to divisions within the court.

Of the five judges who were vying for the post, Fox was the only candidate who was already a part of the court's top leadership. She was also the candidate who had been on the bench the longest.

Fox has been a judge in Philadelphia since 1995, and, before that, she worked as a solo practitioner for nearly 20 years. As a judge she started in family court, serving in the domestic relations division, where she spent five years as supervising judge. She was transferred to the civil trial division in 2008, and in February 2016 she was tapped to take over as the supervising judge of the civil trial division.

In her role as the supervising judge Fox headed the major jury unit, and the motions and statutory appeals program, and helped to lead the Complex Litigation Center. She also continued to handle complex litigation cases.