HR0574 98TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY

HR0574 LRB098 13977 GRL 48528 r

HOUSE RESOLUTION

WHEREAS, The members of the Illinois House of Representatives wish to congratulate the Honorable Rita B. Garman on the occasion of being selected as the 119th Chief Justice of the Illinois Supreme Court; and

WHEREAS, Rita Garman is a native of the State of Illinois; she was born in November of 1943 in Aurora and educated in Aurora public schools; she was the class valedictorian at Oswego High School in 1961 and graduated with highest honors from the University of Illinois in 1965; and

WHEREAS, Choosing to pursue a legal career, Rita Garman entered the University of Iowa College of Law, where she graduated with honors in 1968; she practiced law in both the public sector and the private sector in Danville; and

WHEREAS, As a jurist, Rita Garman has served in almost literally every level of the Illinois bench; she served as an Associate Circuit Judge from 1974 to 1986, a Circuit Judge in the Fifth Judicial Circuit from 1986 to 1995, which included service as the Presiding Circuit Judge from 1987 to 1995, and an Appellate Judge from 1995 to 2001; she was selected to serve as a Justice of the Illinois Supreme Court on February 1, 2001; and

WHEREAS, When Rita Garman graduated from law school in 1968, only 3% of lawyers in the United States were women; today, more than 40% of each annual class of law graduates in the United States are women, due in part to the work done by pioneers in law and jurisprudence such as the Honorable Rita Garman; and

WHEREAS, Rita Garman has become the most recent of the many graduates of, and teachers at, Oswego High School to achieve the highest honors in the public service of the State of Illinois and the United States; and

WHEREAS, On September 12, 2013, Rita Garman was selected by her colleagues to serve as the 119th Chief Justice of the Illinois Supreme Court, succeeding the Honorable Thomas Kilbride; she will begin her new duties on October 26, 2013; therefore, be it

RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE NINETY-EIGHTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that we congratulate the Honorable Rita B. Garman upon the honorable progress of her juridical career and the example which she has set for Illinois lawyers at every level of the profession; and be it further

RESOLVED, That a suitable copy of this resolution be presented to the Honorable Rita Garman as a token of the respect she has earned from the Illinois House of Representatives for the juridical work to which she has dedicated her life.