Indian American judge Sanjay Tailor has been appointed to Illinois Supreme Court beginning at the end of January to become the first Asian American to serve on the state’s top court.
Currently District Appellate Justice, Tailor has been appointed to fill the seat vacated by retiring Justice Mary Jane Theis, according to a news release from the Court.
Tailor will serve on the seven-justice bench until at least December 2028, when Cook County voters will decide who will be given a full 10-year term on the bench.
“I am grateful to Justice Mary Jane Theis and the other justices of the Illinois Supreme Court for their confidence and trust in appointing me justice of the Illinois Supreme Court,” Tailor stated. “I also look forward to continuing the work of the Illinois Supreme Court to ensure that our system of justice serves all people fairly and equitably.”
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Tailor has been a Cook County judge since 2003 and became an appellate court judge in 2022. He previously worked as an assistant state’s attorney in Cook County and as a private attorney.
As an associate judge in the trial court, he heard cases in the Municipal, Domestic Relations, Law, and Chancery Divisions. In January 2021, the Illinois Supreme Court appointed him to at-large Circuit Judge, and he was named Presiding Judge of the County Division.
The following year the voters elected him to circuit judge from the 9th Judicial Subcircuit of Cook County. He is a cum laude graduate of Loyola University Chicago School of Law and has taught a course in civil procedure there since 2004.
He practiced law as an associate at Chapman and Cutler, as in-house counsel at the First National Bank of Chicago, and as a Cook County Assistant State’s Attorney.
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He is a member of the Illinois Supreme Court’s Commission on Access to Justice and Committee on Judicial Education, and previously served on the Supreme Court’s Judicial Performance Evaluation Committee.
He is a past president of the Lawyers Club of Chicago and a member of numerous bar associations, as well as the Illinois Judges Association and Asian American Judges Association of Illinois.
Theis was elected to a full term in 2012 and appointed chief justice in 2022. Her term as head of the court ended last October when Chief Justice P. Scott Neville was appointed the new leader of the court.