Ex-GOP attorney general candidate temporarily loses law license over inappropriate relationship
The Illinois Supreme Court has ordered former Republican Illinois attorney general candidate Tom DeVore’s law license suspended for 60 days, following a years-long public feud involving his client-turned-girlfriend and the state’s attorney discipline board.
The court’s order affirms a recommendation this spring by the Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission, which found “clear and convincing evidence” that DeVore’s actions related to Riley Craig had broken several Supreme Court ethics rules.
Craig, a Springfield salon owner, was one of the hundreds of clients DeVore represented in dozens of lawsuits challenging Gov. JB Pritzker’s COVID-19 stay-at-home orders. In 2022, DeVore unsuccessfully ran to unseat Attorney General Kwame Raoul.
DeVore, a lawyer from downstate Greenville, began a romantic relationship with Craig after filing suit on her behalf in May 2020, according to ARDC documents. Though Craig’s litigation against the Pritzker administration was unsuccessful, their relationship continued for nearly three years.
In his defense against the ARDC case, DeVore claimed that his work as Riley’s attorney ended by the time their romantic involvement began in late May or June 2020. The ARDC disputed DeVore’s timeline, pointing to continued attorney behavior in that case.
DeVore also went on to represent Riley in three other legal matters — including her divorce — that summer. That “demonstrated an unbroken continuation of his attorney-client relationship,” the ARDC ruled.
The disciplinary panel began looking into DeVore’s behavior in 2021, and during that initial investigation, Craig said she was not a client when their sexual relationship began. She repeated that claim on social media while DeVore was running for attorney general in 2022.
But in May 2023, a few months after Craig and DeVore broke up, she “threatened to change her story” to the disciplinary panel so that DeVore would “lose his law license,” according to the ARDC report.
The disciplinary panel pointed out that “even consensual sexual activity between an attorney and a client constitutes an impermissible conflict of interest because the attorney’s emotional involvement with the client creates a significant risk that the attorney’s independent professional judgment will be impaired.”
DeVore also got involved in Craig’s business venture to launch a hair product business, for which the pair took out $600,000 in loans in 2021. But in doing so, the ARDC found DeVore failed to provide “required safeguards” for Craig.
DeVore declined to comment on the court’s order to Capitol News Illinois. His law license will be suspended for 60 days beginning Oct. 10.
Earlier this year, Devore formed a political action committee dubbed “Tom DeVore’s RINO Removal,” referring to the acronym for “Republicans in Name Only.” He has been recruiting candidates to face GOP state legislators in primary races, including House Minority Leader Tony McCombie for Savana.