Illinois, Chicago bar associations make judicial recommendations for June 28 primary

The Illinois State Bar Association and the Chicago Bar Association have released their recommendations for Cook County judicial candidates running in the June 28 primary.

The ISBA, the state's largest bar association, has about 28,000 members. The Chicago Bar is the second largest, with about 17,000 members

For the Illinois appellate court (Hall vacancy), the CBA found Russell "Russ" Hartigan and Debra B. Walker highly qualified and Dominique C. Ross qualified. The ISBA found Walker highly qualified, Hartigan qualified and Ross not qualified.

For the Illinois appellate (Harris vacancy), the CBA found Raymond W. Mitchell and John H. Ehrlich highly qualified and Devlin Joseph Schoop qualified. The ISBA found Mitchell highly qualified and Ehrlich and Schoop not qualified.

For the 11th subcircuit, which includes parts of Elk Grove, Maine, Norwood Park, Leyden, Proviso and Oak Park townships along with some Chicago neighborhoods, the CBA and ISBA found Aileen Bhandari qualified and Chris Taliaferro not recommended or not qualified.

In the 13th subcircuit, which includes parts of Schaumburg, Palatine, Barrington and Hanover townships, the CBA found James "Jack" Costello, Joe Gump, Gary William Seyring and Dominic J. Buttitta qualified and Christine Svenson not recommended. The ISBA found all the candidates qualified.

For the Cook County circuit court, the CBA rated most candidates qualified or highly qualified except Ubi O. O'Neal, Mable Taylor, Wende Williams, Deidre Baumann, Dan Balanoff, Claudia Silva-Hernandez and Meridth Vanae Hammer, who were not recommended.

Likewise, the ISBA rated most candidates qualified or highly qualified except O'Neal, Monica G. Somerville, Taylor, Carmen Migdalia Quinones, Yolanda Harris Sayre, Williams, Baumann, Chelsey Renece Robinson, Balanoff, Silva-Hernandez and Hammer, who were rated not qualified or not recommended.