Governor Harry R. Hughes appointed the Honorable Arthur M. Monty Ahalt to the Circuit Court for Prince George's County on February 9, 1982. The vacancy was created by the retirement of Judge Samuel W. H. Meloy. He was elected to a 15-year term in 1984. Judge Ahalt retired in 1999 and commenced a career as an ADR neutral and technology innovator.

Judge Ahalt was born April 27, 1942. He received his B.S. in Agricultural Economics from the University of Maryland in 1964 and his J.D. from the Washington College of Law of the American University in 1967. He was a Law Clerk for Blair H. Smith, Esquire, the Honorable Ralph W. Powers and the Honorable J. Dudley Digges in the Seventh Judicial Circuit.

While on the bench Judge Ahalt maintained an active trial calendar, having tried over 750 jury trials. He served as Chairman of the Court's Technology and Settlement Conference Committees. In addition, he was appointed supervising judge of the Court's Civil Differentiated Case Management System in 1994.

Judge Ahalt has evaluated the jury value of over 20,000 injuries as a neutral case evaluator for litigants in the Court's settlement practice. He lectures before numerous groups of judges, lawyers, insurance adjusters and court employees on evaluating risk. He has compiled a group of 20 recurring accidents and injuries and a method of evaluating the jury's potential entitled Evaluating Risk. Since retirement Judge Ahalt has conducted numerous ADR cases, acting as an arbitrator, neutral case evaluator and settlement conference facilitator for courts and private parties.

As Chairman of the Court's Technology Committee, Judge Ahalt has been responsible for organizing the Court's National electronic filing pilot entitled JusticeLINK. This pilot represents the first comprehensive effort nationally to file pleadings electronically and to organize the Court's information electronically so that it is available to the public through electronic communications.

Judge Ahalt has received the Distinguished Service Award and the Outstanding Service Award of the Maryland State Bar Association. The Maryland Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs, Inc have named him Employer of the Year. Judge Ahalt is also listed in Who's Who in American Law.

In 2002 Judge Ahalt founded VirtualCourthouse LLC, a company that develops Internet technologies to advance the efficiencies of alternative dispute resolution. In addition to his dispute resolution practice he currently serves as CEO of VirtualCourthouse.