After 48 years, six months as a judge, Supreme Court Justice Rita Garman is retiring effective July 7, 2022. That is the second longest continuous tenure of a judge in Illinois court history. Her career includes service at every level of the Illinois courts, from associate judge to chief justice of the Illinois Supreme Court. 

When she graduated from the University of Iowa Law School in 1968, Justice Garman didn’t expect to be a judge. Her goal was to find a job as an attorney, which was not an easy task for a woman at that time. Nor did she expect to have a number of “firsts” on her career resume. 

Looking back on her career, Justice Garman recounts many uphill challenges. When she decided to attend law school, there were no women judges on the Illinois supreme or appellate courts. She was one of eight women in her law school class. She recalled a professor telling her that she was “only in law school to catch a husband” and that she should give up her seat to “a more deserving male candidate who would have a family to support.” 

After law school, she had difficulty finding a job as a lawyer. She was turned down for several position, once being told: “I don’t know what I would do with you because no one wants to talk to a woman lawyer.” One position she told me, went to a man who was offered $1,500 more than she was offered. She said the state’s attorney in Vermillion County wouldn’t even interview her for an open position. Justice Garman said she is pleased that those times are in the past. But, she said, women still face challenges even though they have more opportunities now in the law. 

Finally, Justice Garman landed her first job as a lawyer when the head of the legal aid office left and the board chairman asked her to assist just to keep the agency doors open. She received valuable assistance from two experienced legal secretaries at legal aid. More assistance came from court clerks and judges who “were very gracious to [her].” With this assistance, she said she was able to keep the doors to legal aid open and the office running until a new director was retained. 

After about six months at legal aid, and with a new director coming on board, the state’s attorney called and asked her to join his prosecutor’s staff to handle juvenile and family cases. Four years later, she joined a law firm in Danville. Then, on Christmas Eve 1973 while driving with her husband and two-year-old daughter to a family Christmas gathering, she heard on the radio that a woman had been selected to become a judge in downstate Illinois. That’s how she learned she would become an associate judge in Vermillion County. When she was sworn in on January 7, 1974, she became the first woman judge in the fifth circuit. 

Justice Garman was elected a circuit judge in 1986 and a year later she became the first woman presiding Judge in Vermillion County. In 1995 when she was assigned to the appellate court, Justice Garman became the first woman to serve on the fourth district bench. In January 2001, she became the second woman to sit on the Illinois Supreme Court. 

Justice Garman’s retirement on July 7, 2022, is 48 years, six months to the day from when she was first sworn in as an associate judge. Justice Garman told me she has been privileged to work with exceptional jurists throughout her career. Colleagues told me it was they who were privileged to have worked with Justice Garman. As a colleague, retired Justice Lloyd Karmeier described Justice Garman as “outstanding, pleasant, delightful, prepared.” Justice Mary Jane Theis said that Justice Garman brought her personality to the courts she served: “calm, wise, respectful,” and a good leader. 

Justice Theis added that Justice Garman’s “impact on Illinois courts and her legacy is in the body of her work” and her “clear writing and thinking.” In more than 21 years on the Illinois Supreme Court, Justice Garman wrote 240 majority opinions plus numerous dissents and special concurrences. Justice Theis described a Garman opinion as “crisply written” in which the reader readily “knows the issue presented and the standard of review applied.” She said Justice Garman “knows and writes to her audience of lawyers, trial judges and the public. She is writing also to future readers to provide a clear understanding of the law.” 

Justice Garman told me this is the right time to retire so she can travel and, more importantly, spend more time with family. Another factor in her decision to retire now, she said, is the new judicial district map that greatly altered the boundaries of the fourth district, which she served at both the appellate and supreme court levels. She said neither retention option of running in the counties of the old fourth district nor the new fourth district was appealing given her desire to have more time with family, particularly her three youngest grandchildren who live in Iowa and whose activities she likes to support.  At age 78, Justice Garman still loves to travel and looks forward to the chance “to go where I want to go and when.” 

A final example of Justice Garman’s wisdom and leadership, according to Justice Theis, came in her recommending Fourth District Appellate Justice Lisa Holder White be appointed to take her place on the Illinois Supreme Court. When she takes the oath of office on July 8, 2022, as the 121st Justice, Justice Holder White will become the first woman of color to serve on the Illinois Supreme Court and the fifth woman Justice in the Court’s history. Like Justice Garman, Justice Holder White will have served as a judge at every level of the Illinois courts.