Illinois Supreme Court issued the following announcement on July 31.
Justice Anne M. Burke and the Illinois Supreme Court have announced that Judge Mary Ellen Coghlan has been assigned as an Appellate Court Justice in the First District.
Judge Coghlan was assigned to fill the opening created by the retirement of Appellate Justice Mary Anne Mason. The assignment of Judge Coghlan takes effect on July 30, 2019, and will remain in effect until further order of the court. “Mary Ellen, you have shaped a noble and honorable life by your commitment to the needs and rights of others; by your love of the law; and by your willingness to safeguard the liberty and freedoms which have made this nation great,” Justice Burke said. “I am confident that, as you enter into this new chapter of your life, your actions will lift us to new measures of admiration.”
Judge Coghlan was first appointed to the bench in 1995, and was elected to six-year term in 1996. She was subsequently retained for six-year terms in the November, 2002, 2008 and 2014 elections. Judge Coghlan spent eight years as a Felony Trial Judge in the Criminal Division and has spent the last 16 years in the Probate Division, serving as Presiding Judge of the Probate Division since December 2010. Prior to her appointment to the bench, Coghlan was an Assistant Cook County Public Defender for five years and an Assistant Attorney General in the General Law Division of the Illinois Attorney General's Office for eight years. Judge Coghlan was appointed in 2017 by the Illinois Supreme Court to serve as a member of the Judicial Inquiry Board for a term expiring in 2021, and serves as a member of the Cook County Circuit Court Associate Judge Nominating Committee. Coghlan has previously served terms as a member of the Illinois Judicial Conference Study Committee on Complex Litigation, as well as the Judicial Conference's Executive Committee and Strategic Planning Committee.
Judge Coghlan earned her Bachelor of Arts from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and her Juris Doctor from the DePaul University College of Law.
Original source can be found here.