Hon. Jean Prendergast Rooney 1970-2015
Even though her leukemia returned after she endured a stem cell transplant, Judge Jean Prendergast Rooney didn’t let that prevent her from hosting Thanksgiving.
She ordered a catered Thanksgiving meal — making sure it was gluten-free for celiac-sensitive relatives — and arranged a sit-down dinner for 10 in her room at the University of Chicago Medical Center.
Two weeks later, the respected jurist died at 45, leaving three children behind.
Jean Prendergast Rooney, an appellate law expert and judge of the Cook County Circuit Court, died Tuesday at the University of Chicago Medical Center.
She was the first woman from her law class to become a member of the judiciary, according to Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, her former classmate at Loyola University School of Law.
“And this is an impressive feat,” Madigan noted at Mrs. Rooney’s swearing-in, “in part because Jean was the youngest member of our law school class going through Loyola’s elite six-year accelerated program. So Jean finished college and started law school while the rest of her peers were struggling through what was hopefully their senior year.”
She “was a star of the Illinois legal community,” said state Supreme Court Justice Mary Jane Theis, for whom she clerked when Theis was an appellate court justice. “She argued before the Illinois Supreme Court many times. She was so admired by her peers that she was elected president of the Illinois Appellate Lawyers Association, and the Supreme Court appointed her to chair a character and fitness committee that investigates . . . applicants to the bar.”
After working for Theis, she clerked for Illinois Supreme Court Chief Justice Mary Ann McMorrow. She joined the firm of Quinlan & Crisham, which evolved into Schuyler, Roche & Crisham.
“She was probably one of the brightest lawyers I have ever known,” said attorney Thomas Crisham. “In working in litigation, you can well imagine, you meet an awful lot of jerks. I have never heard Jean utter one unkind word about another human being, ever.
“And she ran her courtroom the same way — extremely scholarly, but a great sense of empathy. In her first assignment on the Circuit Court, she had a great deal of pro se [self-represented] litigants appear before her in mortgage foreclosure court. . . . She treated them with the same deference and dignity as if they were represented by the top lawyers in the city.”
She is also survived by her brother, Thomas Prendergast. Visitation is from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. Friday at St. Barnabas Church, 10134 S. Longwood Drive. Her funeral Mass is at 10 a.m. Saturday at St. Barnabas.