Illinois Supreme Court Justices to receive awards at Midyear Meeting

All sitting and retired members of the Illinois Supreme Court will be presented with the first annual “Harold Sullivan Award for Judicial Excellence” at the joint Midyear Meeting of the Illinois Judges Association (IJA) and Illinois State Bar Association (ISBA) on Friday, December 10, at a 12 noon luncheon, at the Sheraton Chicago Hotel & Towers, 301 E. North Water St. Created by IJA President Lewis M. Nixon, a judge in the Circuit Court of Cook County, the award was named in memory of the late Judge Harold Sullivan to salute the men and women who serve or have served with distinction on the state’s highest court. Judge Sullivan, who died earlier this year, was instrumental in helping expand the IJA in size and influence. Current justices who will be honored are Chief Justice Thomas L. Kilbride, Charles E. Freeman, Robert R. Thomas, Rita B. Garman, Lloyd A. Karmeier, Anne M. Burke and Mary Jane Theis. The retired, living justices who will receive the award are Benjamin K. Miller, James Heiple, John J. Stamos, Mary Ann G. McMorrow, Moses Harrison II, John L. Nickels, S. Louis Rathje, Thomas Fitzgerald and Phillip Rarick. Judge S. Gene Schwarm, Chief Judge of the Fourth Judicial Circuit, will receive the IJA’s Lifetime Achievement Award.  Judge Schwarm, who has served as chairman of the Conference of Chief Judges since September 2006, is also chair of the Illinois Supreme Court Judicial Mentoring Committee and co-chair of the Illinois Family Violence Coordinating Council. Keynote speaker at the luncheon will be trial attorney, best-selling author, television anchor and legal analyst, Rikki Klieman, who has earned a sterling reputation as one of the nation’s most thoughtful legal authorities. An anchor at the Courtroom Television Network (now Tru TV “In Session”) since 1994, who has also been a legal analyst for the CBS Early Show, the NBC Today Show and the E! Network, Klieman continues to inspire the lives of others with her autobiography, “Fairy Tales Can Come True – How a Driven Woman Changed Her Destiny,” which reached the L.A. Times Best Seller List. Further information about the ISBA/IJA Midyear Meeting is available at www.isba.org and www.ija.org or by calling (312) 431-1283.