May 25 , 2017
Fourth District Appellate Court Justice M. Carol Pope, of Petersburg, recently announced plans to retire effective August 1, 2017.
"I have loved every minute of my career, in particular the last nine years I have served on the Appellate Court," Justice Pope said. "It has truly been a dream come true for me."
Justice Pope received her undergraduate degree from the University of Illinois, where she graduated Phi Beta Kappa, magna cum laude and was named to the Bronze Tablet, the university’s highest recognition of academic excellence, in 1975. She obtained her J.D. degree, with honor, from DePaul University School of Law in 1979, where she was an editor of the Law Review.
Justice Pope served as a law clerk to U.S. District Judge J. Waldo Ackerman in the Central District of Illinois from 1979-1983. From 1983-84, she was an attorney with Mayer, Brown and Platt in Chicago. She was elected Menard County State’s Attorney in 1984 and 1988. In 1991, she was appointed a resident circuit judge of Menard County by the Supreme Court of Illinois and was elected to that position in 1992 and retained in 1998, 2004, and 2010. She was assigned to the Appellate Court on December 1, 2008 and elected to a full term in 2012.
Justice Pope served as Chair of the Supreme Court's Committee on Strategic Planning for three years. She is a past president of the Illinois Judges Association and served as a member of the Executive Committee and as Chair of the Committee on Education of the Illinois Judicial Conference. She is a member of the Illinois Judges Association, the Illinois State Bar Association, and the Sangamon and Menard County Bar Associations. She and her husband, Al, have two sons and four grandsons.