WHY IS JILL RUNNING?
Jill's career ambition has long been to be a judge. Serving DuPage County as a Circuit Court Judge would allow her to continue her 25 year legal career as a public servant. She is passionate about ensuring that all citizens are treated respectfully and professionally in our courtrooms. Additionally, the DuPage Judiciary is in need of diversity as women and minorities are greatly underrepresented.
WHY WOULD JILL MAKE A GOOD JUDGE?
Jill will be an effective judge because she has trial experience and proper temperament. She has been a litigator for 25 years and tried hundreds of cases in both criminal and civil courtrooms, and as both a prosecutor and as a defense attorney. She has also witnessed many courtroom scenarios where deescalating the atmosphere was required.
At the Kane County State’s Attorney’s Office from 1995 until 2000, she litigated over 100 criminal trials, including 11 jury trials. In August 2000, she made the switch from criminal law to civil law and moved to the Illinois Attorney General’s Office. She spent over 11 years defending State agencies in cases involving personal injury, wrongful death, property damage, contracts, and employee discipline. In 2012, she was promoted to Deputy Chief of the Workers’ Compensation Bureau. She litigated about 50 trials and maintained a caseload of approximately 250 cases.
In 2014 she was promoted again to her current position as Chief of the Workers’ Compensation Bureau in Chicago. She now manages 16 attorneys who appear daily before 23 arbitrators in 10 venues and she is responsible for approximately 3,700 files. About half of her time is spent advising these junior attorneys on matters such as trial strategy, client issues and communication issues with opposing counsels, witnesses and clients. Her current position as Chief has allowed her to hone skills such as decision making, problem solving, analysis, reasoning, decisiveness, self-management and communication.
In addition to her courtroom experience, her temperament is also well suited for the bench. She has maintained her composure in many difficult courtroom situations, such as defendants swearing at her, attorneys raising their voices, and defendants purporting to faint before the bench.
Finally, women and minorities are greatly underrepresented in the DuPage Judiciary. In the last 10 years, 25 judges have been appointed and only six appointees were women. Only two of those appointments have been persons of color. A more diverse judiciary would better represent our community as a whole. Jill's perspective as a woman, an attorney, and a mother will be beneficial to all those who appear before me.
Jill was rated highly recommended by the DuPage County Bar Association as a judicial candidate in August 2018 after an interview assessing the following criteria: legal knowledge and ability; judicial temperament, courtroom experience, breadth of legal experiences, reputation in the legal community, activities and leadership in the legal community and community at large, diligence and punctuality, and health.
Additionally, Jill passed the 2017 Administrative Law Judge Examination administered by the Federal Office of Personnel Management. The testing process consisted of an application, Situational Judgment Test, Experience Assessment, Writing Sample, Logic-Based Measurement Test, Written Demonstration and Structured Interview. Each of these parts of the examination evaluated my competencies in decision making, interpersonal skills, judicial analysis, judicial decisiveness, judicial management, judicial temperament, litigation and courtroom experience, oral communication, problem solving, professionalism, reasoning, self-management and writing.
She looks forward to using all of the skills she has developed in the last 25 years to serve the citizens of DuPage County as a Circuit Court Judge.
