By Mallory Hartigan<\/p>\n
Retired Judge Nemenoff is not the stereotypical hard-hitting judge from today’s television story lines. Instead, he could more accurately be compared to Mr. Rogers with his friendly. laid back demeanor.<\/p>\n
Even in retirement, Judge Brian Nemenoff, 66, cannot stay away from the Peoria County Courthouse and the people that meander through the halls of the imposing building.<\/p>\n
Born in 1947 to parents Sylvia and Dave in Chicago, Nemenoff grew up in the Aurora area, eventually graduating from West Aurora High School and moving on to college at Miami University in Ohio. He received his law degree from the University of Illinois College of Law, \u201cback when tuition was $500-$600 a semester,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy mother always told me I wasn\u2019t any good at science and I had to be professional [as a child],\u201d said Nemenoff. \u201cSo I decided to become a lawyer and that transferred into applying to be a judge.\u201d<\/p>\n
After being admitted to the bar in 1974, Nemenoff served as a Peoria city prosecutor, mainly in civic court until his appointment to an associate judge in July 1986.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey ended up giving me the title of city attorney, which doesn\u2019t mean I was the top dog there, but that was just the title they gave me,\u201d said Nemenoff.<\/p>\n
Becoming a judge happened by accident for Nemenoff when he was in his early 30s.<\/p>\n
\u201cI never did try [to become a judge],\u201d said Nemenoff. \u201cI was helping someone else get an appointment. I guess I knew some of the judges better than he did, and so I was over here trying to help him out and someone pulled me aside and said that some of the circuit judges were interested in seeing if I was interested in a future [on the bench]\u2026Some people thought I would make a good judge.\u201d<\/p>\n
Transitioning to the bench as an associate judge was easy, Nemenoff said.<\/p>\n
His first assignment was less \u201cLaw & Order\u201dand more \u201cHere Comes the Bride,\u201d as Nemenoff officiated a wedding for Judge John A. Whitney after being sworn in earlier that day.<\/p>\n
Life as a judge made Nemenoff a little more careful not to embarrass or disrespect the integrity of the job. However, he was not worried about threats to his life, although the police department was on two occasions.<\/p>\n
\u201cOddly enough, the time that I thought was more threatening was sort of not considered a real threat, and the one I thought the guy was just off his meds, they took seriously,\u201d said Nemenoff. \u201cThey actually escorted me out of the court room. I had a perimeter of two to three deputies walking me over to the parking deck, and a police officer or deputy followed me home and didn\u2019t leave until the garage door was down.\u201d<\/p>\n
Today, Nemenoff works as a mediator for family dispute cases, mostly involving children.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy role is to use whatever experience I have to try and get them to settle as much as possible on the children\u2019s issue for relatively inexpensive, quick and less stressful situations,\u201d said Nemenoff. \u201cThe worst part is [handing] your children over to a judge\u2026My job is to get them to believe that I\u2019m neutral or objective and nudge them in the direction that I think the courts are going to decide.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nemenoff said that what he missed the most about being a judgee are the people he worked alongside for so many years.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the reasons I built up my business as a mediator was so I could come downtown and see my friends,\u201d said Nemenoff.<\/p>\n
The feeling seems to be mutual; courthouse employees joke that the friendly neighborhood judge went on a \u2018walkabout\u2019 visiting with people around the courthouse.<\/p>\n
Retired life is treating Nemenoff well. He spends a lot of time with his six grandchildren, one of whom will begin kindergarten this fall. He and his wife are planning several trips around the world, including Portugal and Scotland.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor now I\u2019m happy spoiling my grandkids,\u201d said Nemenoff.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Most people think of mediators as the “relationship savers” or marriage counselors. This misunderstood profession has a in-depth history spanning all the way back to Ancient Greece and the Romans. For a brief history of the profession, go to\u00a0http:\/\/www.timetoast.com\/timelines\/864354.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Mallory Hartigan Retired Judge Nemenoff is not the stereotypical hard-hitting judge from today’s television story lines. Instead, he could more accurately be compared to Mr. Rogers with his friendly. laid back demeanor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[37,154,153,152,155,43,151],"class_list":["post-560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-com-425","tag-final-mm-project","tag-mediation","tag-mediator","tag-nemenoff","tag-peoria","tag-peoria-county-courthouse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/57"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=560"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":609,"href":"http:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560\/revisions\/609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}