Magistrate Judge Geraldine Soat Brown served on the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois in Chicago from June 19, 2000, until her retirement on June 15, 2016. She was the Presiding Magistrate Judge from 2012 to 2016.
Judge Brown was born in Evanston, Wyoming, and grew up in Cleveland, Ohio. She attended St. Joseph Academy in Cleveland, where she received the Distinguished Alumna Award in 2014. She received her B.A. degree
summa cum laude
from the University of Dayton in 1972, and her J.D. degree from the University of Chicago Law School in 1975. At the University of Dayton, she met Charles Brown, who had served in the Marine Corps in Vietnam and received his degree in physics and mathematics. They married after graduation and moved to Chicago so that she could attend law school.
Following law school, Judge Brown joined the firm then known as Devoe, Shadur & Krupp, where she practiced law for 25 years, primarily in commercial and construction litigation and arbitration. She was also a member of the Federal Defender Panel of Attorneys. While in private practice, Judge Brown was active in alternative dispute resolution, serving on the American Arbitration Association’s construction and commercial arbitrator and mediator panels for more than 20 years. She was appointed by the Illinois Supreme Court as a member of the Illinois Supreme Court Alternative Dispute Resolution Coordinating Committee, and as an expert advisor to the Illinois Judicial Conference Alternative Dispute Resolution Coordinating Committee. She also taught alternative dispute resolution as an adjunct professor at Chicago-Kent College of Law and chaired the Chicago Bar Association Alternative Dispute Resolution Committee. Until her appointment to the bench, she was a mediator for the Center for Conflict Resolution.
As a Magistrate Judge, Judge Brown presided over thousands of cases in both pretrial and trial stages, and mediated settlement conferences in virtually every type of civil case except divorce. Judge Brown served on many committees for the court, including co-chairing with Judge Joan Lefkow, a committee that selected photographs depicting Chicago area architectural structures, which now hang in the Dirksen Building corridors and jury rooms. Judge Brown also started a program linking the court’s petty offense call with the John Marshall Law School Veterans Legal Support Center to assist veterans struggling with problems like homelessness and substance abuse.
After retiring from the bench, Judge Brown joined JAMS, where she is a private arbitrator, mediator, and court-appointed special master. Until the pandemic closed the court, she volunteered at the Hibbler Pro Se Help Desk. She is also active in her parish and local organizations in her town of Glenview. She and her husband, Charles, enjoy spending time with friends and family, including their two sons and two grandsons.