Mary Ann McMorrow

Mary Ann Grohwin was born to Roman and Emily Grohwin and grew up in a Roman Catholic household on the northwest side of Chicago. She attended Rosary College, now known as Dominican University. She received her law degree at Loyola University Chicago School of Law and was admitted practice law in Illinois in 1953.[2][3]

She was employed by the law firm of Riordan & Linklater. She was appointed Assistant State's Attorney of Cook County, assigned to the Criminal Division, and was the first woman to prosecute felony cases in Cook County. She was elected a Judge of the Circuit Court of Cook County in 1976. By order of the Supreme Court of Illinois, McMorrow was assigned to the Illinois Appellate Court in 1985 and elected to that court in 1986. She was the first woman elected to serve as chairperson of the Executive Committee of the Appellate Court. She was elected to the Supreme Court of Illinois in 1992, the first woman to serve in its 173-year history. With her election as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Illinois in May 2002, she became the first woman to head any of the three branches of state government.

She was the 1991 recipient of the "Medal of Excellence" award from Loyola University Chicago School of Law's Alumni Association. She also was awarded the Chicago Bar Association's Justice John Paul Stevens Award and the 1996 The Fellows of the Illinois Bar Foundation award for Distinguished Service to Law and Society.

Mary Ann McMorrow was inducted as a Laureate of The Lincoln Academy of Illinois and awarded the Order of Lincoln (the State’s highest honor) by the Governor of Illinois in 2007 in the area of Government and Law.[4]

Justice McMorrow retired from the bench on July 5, 2006.[5]

Chief Justice McMorrow was a member of the:

• Illinois State Bar Association and Chicago Bar Associations
• Women's Bar Association of Illinois
• American Inns of Court (Master Bencher)
• American Judicature Society
• National Association of Women Judges
• Illinois Judges' Association (Board of Directors)

Justice McMorrow died on February 23, 2013, at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, aged 83, from undisclosed causes. She was married to Emmett McMorrow; the couple had one child, a daughter, Mary Ann (born 1963).

• List of female state supreme court justices

• Mary Ann McMorrow's biodata at the Illinois Supreme Court website