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Lake Forest College US Elections Guide: 2024

FINDING INFORMATION ABOUT JUDGES

Judicial candidates are notoriously hard to find information about. Not only do the races get less coverage than other offices, but information on the legal world is generally hard to come by for anyone not working as an attorney. There are, however, some places to look:

Local News

  • If the candidate is already working as a judge, try searching their name in local newspapers. If they've decided any important or controversial cases there may a news story about it.
  • If the candidate is working as an attorney try searching for their firm along with their name. Even knowing what sort of clients they work with and what area of law they practice can give you something to work with.
  • Some likely news sources to try for the Chicago area include: The Chicago Tribune, The Daily Herald, WBEZ.

Bar Associations

  • Bar associations like the Illinois State Bar Association evaluate candidates for judge based on legal ability, temperament, impartiality, and other measures.
  • You can choose a bar association that matters to you from this list of Illinois bar associations.
  • For (a little) more information about how bar associations make their choices read this article from Injustice Watch.

Court Reports

  • Courts are required to publish publicly available annual reports. The details may be scarce, but the reports should include overviews of the kinds of cases the court decided and, in some cases, press releases from the court for that year.
  • Lake Forest College is in the Illinois 19th Circuit Court district. The Report of the Judiciary is their annual report (the most current available version is from 2020).

Case Records

  • In some cases you may be actually able to find records of cases decided by a candidate. The library has access to case records through Nexis Uni and HeinOnline's Fastcase Premium, but both these databases only have appellate and supreme court cases for Illinois.
    • One way to evaluate circuit judges without access to their cases is to search the judge's name and see how often their decisions are reversed or upheld in appellate court.
  • Lake County Circuit Court Public Access System does have the records for circuit level cases, but the search interface requires you to search by case number or plaintiff name rather than allowing a search by judge.

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COOK COUNTY RESOURCES

Due to the sheer number of judges in Cook County (over 400 compared to Lake County's 39) there is more coverage focusing exclusively on Cook. Info about statewide races and other general information may still be valuable to Lake County voters.

  • Injustice Watch -- investigative reporting and news analysis focusing on the Cook County justice system, includes an in-depth candidate guide for judicial elections
  • Vote for Judges -- information about judicial candidates and voting in Cook County including reviews from the major bar associations
  • For What It's Worth -- blog following Cook County legal news and controversies from Chicago attorney Jack Leyhane

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