by Pier J. Rogers<\/p>\n
After 23 years on the 10th<\/sup> Judicial Circuit Court bench, Donald Courson is enjoying his retirement. Below is a detailed account of Courson’s life on the bench and his life thereafter, from taking cases pro-bono to golfing. You will also find an infographic depicting the demographics of those who utilize pro-bono legal services.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Retired Judge Tells His Story<\/strong><\/p>\n Judge Donald Courson served on the 10th<\/sup> Judicial Circuit Court as a judge for 23 years, retiring in 2001. Following his years on the bench, Courson now looks forward to getting on the green of the golf course and the green of life: giving back to the community by taking pro-bono cases.<\/p>\n In high school, he contemplated going to law school, but didn\u2019t get serious about it until later on in his life.<\/p>\n \u201cIt probably wasn\u2019t until I was in college; I took a couple of law courses. One in particular, a constitutional law course that really interested me, and I think that\u2019s when I made up my mind,\u201d said Courson.<\/p>\n He completed his undergraduate degree requirements at the University of Notre Dame and then attended law school at John Marshall Law School located in downtown Chicago, where he graduated in February 1970.<\/p>\n Fresh out of law school, Courson practiced law at a Waukegan legal aid office until 1971. He then became an assistant state\u2019s attorney in Peoria.<\/p>\n Also in 1971, he married his lifelong sweetheart Mary; they\u2019ve now been married for 43 years. They had two daughters, now ages 36 and 38, and one granddaughter.<\/p>\n In March 1979, Courson was elected to be an associate judge, and in November 1982, he was elected to the 10th<\/sup> Circuit Court as a judge.<\/p>\n Courson believed that being a judge was more established than the regular everyday life he once had.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a much more stable existence, not that my existence before that was unstable. But I mean, you have a salary, you know what your income is, you know what your benefits are so your life becomes fairly predictable,\u201d said Courson.<\/p>\n Courson heard hundreds of jury cases and thousands of bench cases, in which the judge makes the final ruling instead of a jury. He liked some cases better than others; he specifically liked felony cases and disliked divorce cases.<\/p>\n He really enjoyed being a judge. By 1996, he had been a judge for 17 years and knew the ins and outs of the job, both good and bad.<\/p>\n \u201cNothing really disappointed me; I knew what the job was. I don\u2019t think I had any real disappointments,\u201d said Courson.<\/p>\n He has owned his own practice for some time now and also volunteers his time on the committee for the Center of Prevention and Abuse, advising case workers in their more difficult cases for free. Courson is also a member of the Peoria County Bar Association, as well as the Illinois Bar Association.<\/p>\n Outside of being a retired judge and enjoying the retired life with family and friends, Courson occasionally visits One World for their hummus and goes on golf outings. He also frequents Jim\u2019s Bistro in Peoria Heights.<\/p>\n The one thing Courson misses most about his old job is his peers that he worked with on the daily basis.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Demographics of Pro-bono Users<\/b><\/p>\n Not everyone is fortunate enough to be able to afford attorney fees. Pro-bono cases allow underprivileged citizens to get attorneys to work their cases, and it is a great way for those attorneys to give back to their communities with the skills they\u2019ve acquired over the years on people who used pro-bono legal service in the United States in 2011. Click\u00a0here <\/a>to\u00a0\u00a0view the statistics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Pier J. Rogers After 23 years on the 10th Judicial Circuit Court bench, Donald Courson is enjoying his retirement. Below is a detailed account of Courson’s life on the bench and his life thereafter, from taking cases pro-bono to golfing. You will also find an infographic depicting the demographics of those who utilize pro-bono legal services.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[64,157,156,34],"class_list":["post-575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-finalproject","tag-illinois10thjudicialcircuit","tag-judicialhistory","tag-com425"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=575"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":589,"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575\/revisions\/589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}