Illinois Supreme Court Justice P. Scott Neville, Jr. has been selected by his peers to be the high court’s next chief justice.
Neville, a career Democrat, will begin his three-year term in October. He will be the state’s second Black chief justice after the late Justice Charles E. Freeman, who served from 1997 to 1999. Neville will succeed Chief Justice Mary Jane Theis, who has been on the bench since 2022 and will remain as an associate justice.
A consistent equal justice advocate, Neville launched his legal career in 1974 as the first Black law clerk to an Illinois First District Appellate Court judge, Glenn T. Johnson. He later built a practice in civil rights and appellate law, and in 1992 worked on a pivotal case challenging Chicago’s ward remap with former Appellate Court Judge R. Eugene Pincham and a future president, Barack Obama.
Neville went on to become a circuit court judge in Cook County in 1999, an appellate court judge in 2004 and an Illinois Supreme Court justice in 2018, after Justice Freeman retired.
Neville earned a bachelor’s degree from Culver-Stockton College in Canton, Missouri, and his law degree from Washington University School of Law.
Neville has pledged to strengthen public trust in the justice system.
“I will always work to make the Illinois courts a national model, safeguarding the constitutional promise of equal justice without regard to who a person is, where they live, or what resources they have so all litigants are seen and heard,” he said.
Wendy Todd is a member of Report for America, which supports local journalists who report on under-covered issues and communities.