Women in Law 2023

2023

NADINE WICHERN Illinois Attorney General

F or 23 years, Nadine Jean Wichern has served governments as an appellate litigator. She has been Chief of the Civil Appeals Division in the Illinois Attorney General’s Office since 2015. As Chief, she leads 24 attorneys who handle appeals for the State and its officials and employees covering diverse areas of law, including constitutional issues. She also advises the Office’s trial attorneys, general counsels of state agencies, and Solicitor General. Nadine joined the Office as an Assistant Attorney General in 2001, after a clerkship with Judge William J. Bauer on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. In 2005, she completed a United States Supreme Court Fellowship with the National Association of Attorneys General in Washington, D.C. She was an Assistant Corporation Counsel in the Appeals Division of the City of Chicago’s Department of Law from 2005-2011, before returning to the Attorney General as a supervisor in 2011. As an appellate attorney, Nadine has handled hundreds of her own cases before the United States Supreme Court, United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, Illinois Supreme Court, and Illinois Appellate Court (all five Districts). Nadine also taught legal writing courses for 11 years, including at Loyola University School of Law, DePaul University College of Law, and University of Illinois Chicago School of Law. She has presented at several continuing legal education programs. And she has authored chapters in Illinois Civil Appeals: State and Federal (IICLE). Currently, Nadine is on the DePaul Moot Court Alumni Board,

and is a Co-Chair of the Law and Debate Club of the Chicago Bar Association, Co-Chair of the Mentorship Committee of the Women’s Bar Association of Illinois, and a formal mentor to law students through the Women’s Bar Association of Illinois, Chicago Bar Association, and The Appellate Project. In addition to the Women’s Bar Association and Chicago Bar Association, she is a member of the Appellate Lawyers Association, Seventh Circuit Bar Association, American Bar Association (Council of Appellate Lawyers), Illinois State Bar Association, and Scribes: The American Society of Legal Writers. She was on the Illinois Supreme Court’s Judicial Redistricting Task Force in 2021 and was appointed by the Illinois Governor to the Uniform Law Commission in 2023. Nadine earned a B.A. in political science and history, with a minor in English, from Indiana University in 1997. While in college, she played trombone in the marching and basketball bands. She graduated at the top of her class from DePaul University College of Law in 2000. During law school, she served as Managing Editor of Notes and Comments on the DePaul Law Review ; earned CALI Awards in Evidence, Torts, Wills and Trusts, Constitutional Process I and II, and State Constitutional Law; was awarded merit scholarships, including from the Women’s Bar Association of Illinois Foundation; and was inducted to the Order of the Coif. Nadine was born in Anaheim, California, near Disneyland. She now lives in Chicago, near Wrigley Field, with her husband, Ryan O’Malley, who owns O’Malley Marketing and Communications.

WOMEN IN LAW 2023