Primary Election Judicial Evaluations for June 2022 are Live!

Among the Chicago Council of Lawyers’ most vital projects are our state judicial evaluations. This crucial public service to help the citizens of Illinois vote for qualified judges. The quality of our judiciary is a critical part of our democracy, and informed voting for judges is necessary if we are to have good judges who are independent.

The next judicial election in Cook County is on June 28, 2022, during the Illinois primary election. Voters will be asked to make decisions about candidates from their political party they wish to see run for that specific judicial vacancy in the partisan general election. Uncontested primary candidates advance automatically to the general election.

The Chicago Council of Lawyers is also part of the Alliance of Bar Associations for Judicial Evaluations (“Alliance”), which is a group of 12 bar associations that collaboratively evaluate judicial candidates in Cook County. The Alliance receives information about candidates’ performances and recommends whether they are qualified to be, or remain, a judge. Although they receive substantially similar information, each bar association in the Alliance issues its own recommendation as to the candidates’ fitness to serve on the bench. You can find the Alliance’s primary evaluation on VoteForJudges.org.

On November 8, 2022, the general election will occur in Illinois. During the general election, candidates that advanced from the primary election will run against a candidate from the other party and sitting judges running for retention will also be on the ballot. The Council is seeking information from the public to inform our retention election evaluations:

For more information on the Council’s judicial evaluation process, visit ChicagoCouncil.org/State-Judicial-Evaluations or contact Malcolm Rich.