Judge Joan Humphrey Lefkow is a United States District Judge for the Northern District of Illinois. She assumed her office in July 2000. In 1982, after ten years of practice in legal services to the poor and other not-for-profit and state government settings, Judge Lefkow was appointed by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois as a Magistrate Judge. In 1997, she was appointed by the Seventh Circuit to a bankruptcy judgeship. Judge Lefkow assumed senior status in 2012 and continues to maintain a substantial caseload.
Judge Lefkow obtained her Artium Baccalaureus degree from Wheaton College. She received her J.D. from Northwestern University School of Law in 1971. She began her career as a law clerk to the late Thomas E. Fairchild of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.
Judge Lefkow has served on a variety of court committees, including two committees of the Judicial Conference of the United States. She currently serves on diversity, equity, and inclusion committees for the Seventh Circuit and the Northern District of Illinois. She is a member of the American Bar Association, the Law Board of the Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, and is a fellow of the American Bar Foundation.
Judge Lefkow was honored by the National Conference of Federal Trial Judges of the American Bar Association for her outstanding lifetime of service to the public, the profession, and the judiciary. Among other awards, she has received the John Paul Stevens Award for her commitment to integrity and public service in the practice of law, the CBA Alliance for Women’s Founders Award, and two judiciary awards from the Women’s Bar Association of Illinois. As a result of her work towards passage of the Court Security Act of 2007, the United States Marshals Service dedicated a conference room in her honor at its Arlington, Virginia, headquarters. Approximately 35 years ago, she spearheaded the establishment of an infant care center in the federal courthouse, which continues to this day and was renamed in her honor in 2013.
Judge Lefkow was married for nearly thirty years to the late Attorney Michael F. Lefkow. She is the mother of four fine women (Laura is a member of the Illinois bar) and grandmother of 13, not counting a long list of “grandclerks” on whom she imposes her claim of affectional kinship.