Judge Elaine E. Bucklo is a judge on the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. She was appointed as a Magistrate Judge in 1985. After serving for nine years, she was appointed to the district court in 1994 by President Clinton. Judge Bucklo was the first magistrate judge to be confirmed as a district judge in the State of Illinois.

Judge Bucklo received her Artium Baccalaureus degree from Saint Louis University in 1966. Judge Bucklo graduated from Northwestern University School of Law, magna cum laude and Order of the Coif, in 1972 and clerked for Judge Robert A. Sprecher in the United States Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals from 1972 to 1973. Judge Bucklo entered private practice in Chicago from 1973 to 1978, and then from 1980 to 1985. She was a visiting professor at the University of California Davis School of Law from 1978 to 1980.

Judge Bucklo is a former president of the Chicago Chapter of the Federal Bar Association and the Chicago Council of Lawyers. She served for fifteen years as an associate editor of the American Bar Association journal, Litigation. Judge Bucklo has also chaired the Development of the Law Committee of the Chicago Bar Association, which focused on civil rights, and has served on the Board of the Women’s Bar Association of Illinois. Judge Bucklo is the 2017 recipient of the Chicago Bar Association Alliance for Women Founder’s Award. She has served on the Judicial Conference Committees on Administration of the Federal Magistrate Judge System and the Committee on Financial Disclosure. She is a member of the Rules Committee in the Northern District of Illinois. She has presided over complex litigation including anti-trust cases, class actions, and multi-district litigation.

Judge Bucklo has authored numerous articles and has been a speaker at bar association programs and continuing legal education seminars.