Sara Lee Ellis (born December 8, 1969) is a

United States district judge The United States district courts are the trial courts of the U.S. federal judiciary. There is one district court for each federal judicial district, which each cover one U.S. state or, in some cases, a portion of a state. Each district cou ...

of the

United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois The United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois (in case citations, N.D. Ill.) is the federal trial-level court with jurisdiction over the northern counties of Illinois. Appeals from the Northern District of Illinois ar ...

Early life

Ellis was born December 8, 1969, in

London, Ontario London (pronounced ) is a city in southwestern Ontario, Canada, along the Quebec City–Windsor Corridor. The city had a population of 422,324 according to the 2021 Canadian census. London is at the confluence of the Thames River, approximate ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

, to Jamaican-born parents. She became a naturalized citizen of the United States when she was 15 years old.

Education and career

She received a

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four year ...

in 1991 from

Indiana University Indiana University (IU) is a system of public universities in the U.S. state of Indiana. Campuses Indiana University has two core campuses, five regional campuses, and two regional centers under the administration of IUPUI. *Indiana Universi ...

. She received a Juris Doctor in 1994 from

Loyola University Chicago School of Law Loyola University Chicago School of Law is the law school of Loyola University Chicago, in Illinois. Established in 1909, by the Society of Jesus, the Roman Catholic order of the Jesuits, the School of Law is located in downtown Chicago. Loy ...

. She worked as a staff attorney at the Federal Defender Program in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

from 1994 to 1999. From 2000 to 2004, she worked at Stetler, Duffy & Rotert, Ltd., a white-collar criminal defense law firm. From 2004 to 2008, she served as assistant corporation counsel for the Chicago Department of Law, handling claims for injunctive relief and civil rights lawsuits. From 2008 to 2013, she served as counsel at the law firm of

Schiff Hardin Schiff Hardin LLP was a national law firm with more than 300 attorneys practicing out of seven offices nationwide — Ann Arbor, Chicago, Lake Forest, New York, Newport Beach, San Francisco, and Washington, DC. It was a general practice fir ...

LLP in Chicago, where she was a member of the litigation and white-collar crime practice groups.

Federal judicial service

On May 6, 2013, President

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the ...

nominated Ellis to be a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, to the seat vacated by Judge Joan B. Gottschall, who assumed

senior status Senior status is a form of semi- retirement for United States federal judges. To qualify, a judge in the federal court system must be at least 65 years old, and the sum of the judge's age and years of service as a federal judge must be at leas ...

on April 23, 2012. She received a hearing before the

Senate Judiciary Committee The United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, informally the Senate Judiciary Committee, is a standing committee of 22 U.S. senators whose role is to oversee the Department of Justice (DOJ), consider executive and judicial nominations ...

on June 19, 2013, and her nomination was reported to the floor of the Senate on July 18, 2013, by

voice vote In parliamentary procedure, a voice vote (from the Latin ''viva voce'', meaning "live voice") or acclamation is a voting method in deliberative assemblies (such as legislatures) in which a group vote is taken on a topic or motion by responding vo ...

. The Senate confirmed her nomination on October 7, 2013, by

. She received her commission on October 8, 2013.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Ellis, Sara Lee 1969 births Living people African-American judges Illinois lawyers Indiana University alumni Judges of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois Loyola University Chicago School of Law alumni People from London, Ontario Public defenders United States district court judges appointed by Barack Obama 21st-century American judges American people of Jamaican descent Canadian emigrants to the United States 21st-century American women judges

Early life

Education and career

Federal judicial service

See also

References

External links