M. Carol Pope

President

JUSTICE CAROL POPE

PRESIDENT, ILLINOIS JUDGES ASSOCIATION

Justice Carol Pope was assigned to the Fourth District Appellate Court on December 1, 2008.  Prior to that, she served as Resident Circuit Judge of Menard County in the Eighth Judicial Circuit, since November1991.  She was elected Menard County State's Attorney in 1984 and reelected in 1988.  She was an attorney with Mayer, Brown & Platt from September 1983 until November 1984. Following her graduation from law school, she served as law clerk to the Honorable J. Waldo Ackerman, Chief United States District Judge for the Central District of Illinois from 1979-1983.

Justice Pope obtained her Juris Doctor degree, with honor, from DePaul University College of Law in 1979, where she was the Lead Articles Editor of the Law Review.  She graduated from the University of Illinois, Phi Beta Kappa, magna cum laude, in 1975.  She was named to the Bronze Tablet, the university's highest recognition of academic excellence, in 1975.

Justice Pope was elected to the Board of Directors of the Illinois Judges Association (IJA) in 2004 and has served as an officer in that organization since 2007. She currently serves as President of the IJA.

Justice Pope served, by appointment of the Supreme Court, on the Executive Committee and as Chair of the Committee on Education of the Illinois Judicial Conference.  The Committee on Education is charged with planning the continuing legal education for all Illinois Judges, the training for new judges and the biannual Advanced Judicial Academy.  Justice Pope also served on the editorial board overseeing the preparation of benchbooks for the Illinois Judiciary.

In addition to her planning and committee work, Justice Pope has served for sixteen years as a faculty member for the New Judge Seminar, having taught the subjects of Domestic Violence, Criminal Procedure, Courtroom Management, Jury Issues and Conducting Effective Child Interviews.

Justice Pope served as a member of the Board of Commissioners of the Office of the State Appellate Defender from 2001 until 2007.  She served as an Assembly Delegate to the Illinois State Bar Association from 1998 to 2000.  She is a member and a past-president of the Lincoln-Douglas American Inn of Court, an organization devoted to promoting civility between the Bench and the Bar.

Justice Pope is an active member of her community.  She is a member of the Menard County School and Community Task Force, Menard County Family Violence Prevention Project, Menard County University Women and recently organized a book club in Petersburg.  Justice Pope has held mock trials for all of the fifth and sixth graders in Menard County for 15 years.  She has made many presentations in the schools and community about the dangers and legal ramifications of illicit drug and alcohol use.  She is currently working with the Courtroom in the Classroom Committee of the Illinois Judges Association to develop a civics program for high school students, which will focus on the role of the courts in our society.

Justice Pope has been married to her husband, Al, for 37 years.  They reside in Petersburg, Illinois. They have two sons, Dr. Jason Pope, an emergency medicine physician, and Douglas Pope, cofounder of Hotpads.com.  They have two beautiful grandsons.