Bar Association Acronyms+

AABAR

Arab American Bar Association of Illinois

AABA

Asian American Bar Association of the Greater Chicago Area

BMLA

Black Men Lawyers’ Association

BWLA

Black Women Lawyer’s Association of Greater Chicago

CCL

Chicago Council of Lawyers

CCBA

Cook County Bar Association

DSL

Decalogue Society of Lawyers

HBA

Hellenic Bar Association of Illinois

HLAI

Hispanic Lawyers Association of Illinois

ISBA

Illinois State Bar Association

LAGBAC

Lesbian and Gay Bar Association

PRBA

Puerto Rican Bar Association

WBAI

Women’s Bar Association

VoteForJudges.org provides nonpartisan judicial voter education to people electing judges in Cook County. We report information on judicial candidates from local media outlets, fourteen bar associations in and around Cook County (the Alliance of Bar Associations and the Chicago Bar Association), and the judicial endorsements of local media outlets.

Alliance of Bar Associations Ratings

  • Bar Association Approval Key:
  • High (>7 Bars Approve)
  • Low (<5 Bars Approve)
  • Results Pending

First District Appellate Court

Illinois has five Appellate Districts with a combined total of 54 Appellate Judges. These judges hear cases that have been appealed from the Circuit Court level. Appellate Judges are elected by the voters in their district or are assigned to the Appellate Court by the Supreme Court to serve 10-year terms. At the end of their term, they must be retained by the voters in their district to keep their position.

Thomas E. Hoffman
All reporting bars say yes.
David W. Ellis
All reporting bars say yes.

Circuit Court of Cook County

Cook County is divided into 20 judicial subcircuits that are redrawn every ten years based on Census data. About two-thirds of all Cook County Judges are elected through the subcircuit system; these candidates must live in their subcircuit but there is no difference in the responsibilities of a judge elected in the subcircuit or through the countywide race. Every six years, judges elected through the subcircuit races must run for retention to keep their position.

Kathy M. Flanagan
CCL, ISBA and LAGBAC say no. All other reporting bars say yes.
Stuart F. Lubin
All reporting bars say yes.
Martin S. Agran
All reporting bars say yes.
Ronald F. Bartkowicz
All reporting bars say yes.
E. Kenneth Wright, Jr.
ISBA says no. All other reporting bars say yes.
James N. Varga
LAGBAC, says no. All other reporting bars say yes.
Mary M. Brosnahan
All reporting bars say yes.
Maura Slattery Boyle
All reporting bars say yes.
Carl Anthony Walker
All reporting bars say yes.
Daniel P. Brennan
All reporting bars say yes.
Ellen L. Flannigan
All reporting bars say yes.
Carol M. Howard
All reporting bars say yes.
Jill Cerone-Marisie
All reporting bars say yes.
Mike McHale
All reporting bars say yes.
James Patrick Murphy
All reporting bars say yes.
Ramon Ocasio III
All reporting bars say yes.
Mary C. Roberts
All reporting bars say yes.
Cecilia Louise Gamrath
All reporting bars say yes.
Tommy Brewer
All reporting bars say yes.
Erica L. Reddick
All reporting bars say yes.
Lionel Jean-Baptiste
All reporting bars say yes.
Michael R. Clancy
All reporting bars say yes.
Regina A. Scannicchio
All reporting bars say yes.
Diann K. Marsalek
All reporting bars say yes.
Carl B. Boyd
All reporting bars say yes.
Daniel R. Degnan
All reporting bars say yes.
John Ehrlich
All reporting bars say yes.
Terry Gallagher
All reporting bars say yes.
William G. Gamboney
All reporting bars say yes.
Elizabeth Mary Hayes
All reporting bars say yes.
Martin C. Kelley
All reporting bars say yes.
Kimberly Lewis
All reporting bars say yes.
Aicha M. MacCarthy
All reporting bars say yes.
Lisa Ann Marino
CCL, ISBA, and LAGBAC, say no. All other reporting bars say yes.
Michael Tully Mullen
All reporting bars say yes.
Karen L. O’Malley
All reporting bars say yes.
Paul S. Pavlus
All reporting bars say yes.
Cynthia Ramirez
All reporting bars say yes.
Beatriz Santiago
All reporting bars say yes.
Clare Joyce Quish
All reporting bars say yes.
Stephanie D. Saltouros
All reporting bars say yes.
Kent Delgado
All reporting bars say yes.
Cecilia A. Horan
All reporting bars say yes.
Joanne F. Rosado
All reporting bars say yes.
Toya T. Harvey
All reporting bars say yes.
Adrienne E. Davis
All reporting bars say yes.
H. Yvonne Coleman
All reporting bars say yes.
Debra A. Seaton
All reporting bars say yes.
David R. Navarro
All reporting bars say yes.
Robert Harris
All reporting bars say yes.
Preston Jones, Jr.
All reporting bars say yes.
Peter Michael Gonzalez
All reporting bars say yes.
Jeanne Marie Wrenn
All reporting bars say yes.
Michael B. Barrett
All reporting bars say yes.
Tiana S. Blakely
All reporting bars say yes.
Joel Chupack
All reporting bars say yes.
Elizabeth Ciaccia-Lezza
All reporting bars say yes.
Kevin P. Cunningham
All reporting bars say yes.
Colleen Reardon Daly
All reporting bars say yes.
Beatriz Frausto-Sandoval
All reporting bars say yes.
Ieshia Gray
CCL, DSL, ISBA, and PRBA say no. All other reporting bars say yes.
Jack J. Hagerty
All reporting bars say yes.
Lindsay Huge
All reporting bars say yes.
Kathaleen T. Lanahan
All reporting bars say yes.
Thomas F. McGuire
All reporting bars say yes.
Scott McKenna
All reporting bars say yes.
Shannon O’Malley
CCL, CCBA, DSL, HBA, HLAI, ISBA, LAGBAC, and PRBA say no. All other reporting bars say yes.
Erika Orr
All reporting bars say yes.
Linda Perez
DSL, says no. All other reporting bars say yes.
James “Jamie” Shapiro
All reporting bars say yes.
Tom Sam Sianis
All reporting bars say yes.
Rosa Maria Silva
All reporting bars say yes.
Kathryn Maloney Vahey
All reporting bars say yes.
Andrea M. Webber
All reporting bars say yes.
Arthur Wesley Willis
All reporting bars say yes.

Individual Bar Association Results

The below section includes the evaluation results of individual bar associations in the Alliance, if available, and the Chicago Bar Association. It will be updated as results come in.

More Resources to Check Your Judges

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Having fair, qualified judges is critical to ensure that the rights of everyone are protected. Like other elected public officials, judges make decisions about fundamental issues that affect all of us. Judges decide very personal issues, such as child custody decisions, as well as those with much a broader impact. The decisions that judges make affect our lives, both directly and indirectly, often for many years to come.

We appreciate your effort to vote for judges. Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts launched VoteForJudges.org more than a decade ago in an effort to educate voters about judicial elections in Cook County. It is important for voters to have the information necessary to elect judges they can trust to make impartial decisions based on fair consideration of the facts and law. If voters are informed, the judicial election process has potential to improve the transparency and accessibility of our court system and the accountability of judges and other system actors.

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