Hon. Stephen R. Pacey, of Paxton, a circuit judge in the 11^th Judicial Circuit, has been elected treasurer of the Illinois State Bar Association (ISBA).

Appointed to the bench in 1996, Judge Pacey was elected in 1998 and retained in 2004 and again in 2010. Before becoming a judge, he was a partner in the law firm of Pacey & Pacey. In addition to his private practice, he served as Ford County Public Defender from 1985 to 1990 and as a Commissioner of the Illinois Court of Claims from 1994 to 1996. Judge Pacey has heard cases in all five counties of the 11^th Judicial Circuit, as well as cases in Cook, Cumberland, Iroquois and Vermilion counties by Supreme Court assignment. 

An ISBA member since 1974, Judge Pacey was elected to its Board of Governors in 2007 and re-elected in 2010, and has served on the Board’s Scope and Correlation Committee and Budget and Audit Committee. A member of the ISBA Assembly from 1994 to 2000 and from 2004 to the present, he has chaired the ISBA’s Judicial Advisory Polls Committee and Committee on Attorney Registration & Disciplinary Commission. Judge Pacey has also served on the ISBA’s Judicial Evaluation Committee, Bar Election Supervision Committee, Juvenile Justice Section Council and Alternative Dispute Resolution Section Council.

A member of the Ford County Bar Association since 1974, he served as its president from 1991-97.  He co-founded the Ford County Restorative Justice Program in 1998, and in 2011 instituted a Drug Court in Ford County. He also serves as a member of the board of directors of the Illinois Judges Association, and has served on the Advisory Board of the Illinois Bar Foundation and on the Board of Directors of the ISBA Mutual Insurance Company. By Supreme Court appointment, he served the maximum allowable 9 years on the Illinois Judicial Conference. Judge Pacey has been a frequent presenter and participant in ISBA Continuing Legal Education (CLE) programs, as well as Judicial CLE programs conducted by the Illinois Judicial Conference Committee on Education. 

Judge Pacey received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1970 and his J.D. from the University of Illinois College of Law in 1974.

The 33,000-member ISBA (isba.org), with offices in Springfield and Chicago, provides professional services to Illinois lawyers, and education and services to the public through a website (illinoislawyerfinder.com), a cable television program (“Illinois Law”), consumer brochures, and distribution of legal, informational news to daily and weekly newspapers.