Political Quotes

“today I wish to pay tribute to Justice Mary Ann McMorrow, a devoted public servant and a pioneer of the Illinois legal community who passed away last weekend at the age of 83. Justice McMorrow was a native Chicagoan, attending Immaculata High School and Rosary College which is now Dominican University. She went on to attend the Loyola University School of Law, where she was elected class president and served as associate editor of the Law Review. She graduated in 1953 as the only woman in her class. Yet as Justice McMorrow set off on her legal career, she refused to let glass ceilings stop her from reaching the greatest heights. Justice McMorrow embarked on a public service career that would span decades and culminate in her service as the first woman on the Illinois Supreme Court and its first female chief justice. Her public sector career began with a post as an assistant State's attorney in Cook County, where she became the first woman in Cook County to prosecute major felonies. On one occasion she was told by a supervisor in the State's attorney's office that she would not be presenting an oral argument before the Illinois Supreme Court because women had not done that before. Well, before long Justice McMorrow would preside over the very same arguments from which she was once excluded. In 1976, Justice McMorrow was elected as a judge of the Circuit Court of Cook County, and she joined the Illinois Appellate Court in 1985.…”