Sara Borg worked as a registrar at the Werribee Magistrates Court in Melbourne's southwest, but pretended to be a mate's lawyer and helped him pester his ex-girlfriend for shared custody of their infant.

The wannabe lawyer insisted a fellow court staffer take a lunch break before using their login details to create a interim intervention order and sending it to South Australian police to serve on the child's mother in October 2018.

After being caught out, Borg quit her job and told the friend for whom she made the order: "Haha I didn't lose my job for that c*** to get away with keeping a child from her father".

The 40-year-old former registrar was jailed in the County Court of Victoria on Thursday for a maximum of two years and one month.

She will be imprisoned with her five-month-old baby and become eligible for release on parole after 13 months.

Borg pleaded guilty to two counts each of misconduct in public office and unauthorised access with the intent to commit a serious offence. She also admitted to making and using a false document.

The magistrate whose name was used to make the fake intervention order look legitimate said she was greatly distressed about would have happened it if had been served.

The order stipulated the SA woman surrender her child to her ex-partner for 24 hours every three weeks, something police thought was oddly specific.

"I thought I was going to be arrested. I was very distraught and upset about the whole thing," the infant's mother later said.

Judge Fran Dalziel said Borg's abuse of her job and access to confidential information deserved a jail term.

Before creating the intervention order, she also improperly looked up and sent her sister the court history of a tradie who had been to the latter's house.

Borg was studying law at the time and intended to finish her degree even though her convictions meant she'd likely be prevented from practising.

Judge Dalziel accepted Borg's fall from grace and the subsequent media attention had been distressing and humiliating.

Being separated from her older child while behind bars would also make prison harder, coupled with COVID-19 restrictions banning visits, the judge said.

The previous suicides of a friend and a magistrate which whom Borg had worked worsened her mental health issues and impaired her ability to exercise proper judgment when she hacked the work computer.

She also had a reputation for going to great lengths to help others, but took this to new and illegal heights.

Her father described her as "the type of person who would give you the shirt off her back and go out of her way to help people".

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Australian Associated Press