Domestic relations

We have the candidates for the Public Service Commission District 1.

We have the candidates for Civil District Court Division L, Division M, and Domestic Relations Section 1.

We have the candidates for Criminal District Court Section D, Section H, and Magistrate Court.

We have the constables, candidates for 1st City Court, all of which will be participating in the debate tomorrow.

Yeah, so normally the way that we, uh, divvy up the work is, um, you know, our editor basically assigns us, uh, this year it was about 10, 10, 10 judges per person, and they try to gr- give us all, like, so that everyone has judges from the same division so that, you know, as you're doing the research, you're getting also more familiar, um, ab- about how that area of the law works and that division of the court works.

So as you're talking to attorneys about the judges and litigants about the judges, you kind of, you know, can, can more easily just cover everyone who's up for retention in that corner of the court rather than having like, uh, you know, every person have like one criminal judge and one person from Domestic Relations and one juvenile court judge.

So as much as possible, they try to get us, um, they try to make the assignments so that people are handling just, you know, the same one area of the court or maybe two.

Um, uh, and, uh, we try to be equitable about assigning suburban, uh, locations, 'cause we do also do court watching and, um, you know, they try to make sure that nobody's having to go to Skokie and Markham, you know? [laughs] So, uh, i- I got assigned the Domestic Relations judges this time around, so this was my first time really heavily dipping into that world.

Um, in the past I've done, my assignments have been more, uh, criminal and like s- um, first municipal, like kind of civil, uh, judges, but this is my first time having an all, all Domestic Relations, um, uh, group.

And it was definitely super eye-opening.

I mean, this, it, uh, it's actually, it's kind of like changed my perspective on the courts and on judges and just on h- how I think about judges, um-

So there's this way that, like, things are kind of, like, always in flux and kind of removed.