Alumna to Deliver Commencement Address in Wake of Her 30th Law School Anniversary
Honorable Nichole C. Patton
“I graduated in 1996, and to return thirty years later as the commencement speaker, as a Circuit Court Judge, as President of The Chicago Bar Association, and as a member of the adjunct faculty here at UIC Law, is an honor I do not take lightly,” said the Honorable Nichole C. Patton, Circuit Court Judge of Cook County and President of the Chicago Bar Association.
What makes this experience even more remarkable is that many of the graduates are students who Judge Patton has been able to influence through advocacy coaching, classroom leadership, and professional connections. Now, 30 years later, she is excited to share her non-linear path to law school, full of pivots and persistence, to inspire the next generation of legal professionals.
“I want them to look at my story, the journalism major who never planned on law school… and understand that the road does not have to be straight to be purposeful. Coming back to UIC Law at this moment feels less like coincidence and more like confirmation. I am exactly where I am supposed to be,” she said.
Today, Judge Patton serves as a Circuit Court Judge of Cook County in the Law Division – Trial Section. In this capacity, Judge Patton presides over complex civil matters including medical malpractice, commercial litigation, nursing home neglect, products liability, and real estate law. Previously, she was assigned to the County Division, where she presided over Mental Health Law, Real Estate Taxation, Civil Asset Forfeitures, and Election Law proceedings.
Judge Patton currently serves as the current President of The Chicago Bar Association (2025–2026), leading one of the nation’s preeminent metropolitan bar associations with over 17,000 members. She is also actively engaged in the legal community through leadership and membership in multiple bar associations including the American Bar Association and Black Women Lawyers Association.
UIC Law had a chance to connect with Judge Patton to learn more about her experience in law school, her journey through the legal profession, and how the Law School has prepared her for where she is in her career today.
Check out the interview below.
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What first interested you in the field of law and influenced your decision to attend the Law School that is now UIC Law?
Honestly? Law was never on my radar. I was a journalism major at Alabama State University. I wrote for the student newspaper, I was a lead anchor for our weekend cable station, and my plan was to go to work for the Montgomery Advertiser Journal and eventually become a television anchorwoman. That was the dream. That was the path I had mapped out for myself.
Then, first semester of my senior year, my criminal justice professor, I had taken a few electives in criminal justice, asked me what I planned to do after graduation. I told her exactly that: work for the paper, work my way up, get in front of a camera. She looked at me and said, “You’re going to law school.”
I pushed back immediately. I told her I wasn’t prepared, that I didn’t have the right major, that I had never even considered it, that I simply was not equipped. And she asked me two questions: “Can you read?” Yes. “Can you write?” Yes. She said, “Then you can go to law school.”
That conversation changed the entire trajectory of my life. Law school was never something I sought out, it found me through the eyes of someone who saw something in me that I hadn’t yet seen in myself. And I will be forever grateful for that moment.
As for why [this law school] specifically, if I was going to do this, I wanted to come home. Chicago is home. And the Law School had a reputation that was hard to ignore. Founded in 1899 as a school built intentionally on access and opportunity, opening its doors to women, minorities, and working-class students when other institutions would not, it had a character that resonated with me. This was a school that believed in people who others might overlook, and I was someone who had arrived at law school by an unconventional road.
Its footprint in Chicago’s legal community was undeniable. The Law School’s alumni had gone on to shape the city’s law firms, courthouses, and government offices at every level. Notable alumni were a testament to what the institution produced. That kind of legacy, rooted right here in Chicago, made the decision clear. I came home, and I have never looked back.
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Please share a high-level overview of your career journey from commencement to where you are today as a Judge and President of the Chicago Bar Association. Was it linear, or did it take twists, turns, and pivots to achieve the success you have today?
Everything but linear. And I think that’s actually the most important thing I can share.
While I was still a 3L at the Law School, I got a first-round interview with the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office. I got the offer, and I thought I was going to be a career prosecutor. I loved that work, the pace, the purpose, and the weight of it. But around the five-year mark, a friend of mine who had graduated a year ahead of me from the Law School sat me down and asked a question I wasn’t expecting: What did I want to do with the rest of my life? He told me I had a decision to make, career prosecutor, or cross over into the civil world. That conversation planted a seed.
So after five years, I went left. I moved into insurance defense at Liberty Mutual, then into medical malpractice defense at a law firm, and eventually I opened my own practice. Life had other plans too, I had three children during those years, and when my youngest turned two, a friend from the State’s Attorney’s Office called to let me know they were hiring again. I called, got hired, and stayed for another eight years.
Then in 2018, the Illinois Supreme Court appointed me to the Circuit Court of Cook County. I ran for the seat in 2020 and won, and I’ve been on the bench ever since, presiding over complex civil matters in the Law Division, including personal injury, medical malpractice, and commercial litigation.
Throughout my time at the State’s Attorney’s Office, I reengaged with The Chicago Bar Association, co-chairing and chairing events, joining committees, and building relationships. That involvement eventually set me on the path to becoming an officer of the CBA, and ultimately, its President.
None of that was in the plan. But every chapter, prosecution, defense, solo practice, the bench, bar leadership, was preparing me for the next one.
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In what ways has the law school prepared you for where you are in your career today?
The Law School gave me practical tools to survive in this profession, and I mean that literally. The curriculum was not abstract or theoretical for the sake of it. Trial advocacy, legal writing, civil and criminal procedure, these were not just courses on a transcript. They were armor. When I walked into my first courtroom, I was not starting from scratch. I had a foundation that I could stand on, a framework for how to think, how to argue, and how to conduct myself as a professional in a high-stakes environment.
But if I am being honest about the course that changed everything for me, it was Trial Advocacy. That class was my favorite, and I say that without hesitation. There is something that happens when you stand up in front of a room and have to perform, have to think on your feet, read a witness, adjust your approach in real time, and advocate for a position with conviction and precision. Trial Advocacy taught me that lawyering is not just intellectual, it is physical, it is present, it is alive in the room. You cannot fake it. You either know the record, or you don’t. You either command the space, or you don’t. That class demanded both, and rising to meet that demand shaped me in ways I still feel today.
It is no coincidence that Trial Advocacy is the course I came back to teach. When I joined the adjunct faculty at UIC Law, there was never a question about what I wanted to give students. I wanted to give them what was given to me, the experience of being in the arena before the arena is real, so that when it is real, they are ready. Watching students find their footing in that classroom, discover their courtroom voice, and grow in confidence over the course of a semester is one of the most rewarding things I do. That class planted something in me, and I have spent a significant part of my career cultivating it in others.
What I appreciate most, looking back, is that my education equipped me for multiple paths. I was prepared to work for someone else. I was equally prepared to hang my own shingle and run my own practice. Those practical skills, the ability to research, to write, to argue, to analyze, to anticipate the other side’s position before they even make it, transferred across every environment I moved through over the course of my career: prosecution, defense, solo practice, and ultimately, the bench. That kind of versatility does not happen by accident. It is the product of an institution that took seriously its responsibility to graduate lawyers who were ready to work on day one.
This school also taught me something beyond doctrine and procedure, it taught me the weight of the profession. That a lawyer’s first obligation is to earn the public’s trust. That the law is not simply a set of rules to be memorized and deployed, but a framework of justice that real people depend on. That ethos has shaped how I approach every ruling I issue, every courtroom I preside over, and every role I have held in bar leadership. The values instilled in me at the Law School did not stay in the classroom, they became the standard I hold myself to every single day.
And I would add this: the relationships I built at the Law School were part of the preparation too. My classmates became my colleagues, my referral sources, my sounding boards, and my friends. The legal community in Chicago is interconnected in ways that become more apparent with every passing year, and the ties formed in those hallways have mattered more than I could have predicted at the time.
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How does it feel to reconnect with the law school in the wake of your 30th anniversary?
When I walked out of those doors in 1996, I had a degree, a dream, and no perfectly mapped plan. What I did have was a foundation and this school gave me that. To come back now and stand before graduates who are in that very same moment, holding that same degree and that same sense of possibility, is deeply moving.
What makes it even more personal is that some of the students who will be in that audience are students whose journeys I have had the privilege of touching, through trial advocacy coaching, through the classroom, through connections made on LinkedIn that grew into something more meaningful. I have watched some of them find their voice in a courtroom. Seeing them cross that stage will be one of the great joys of this milestone.