Women's Bar Association of Illinois

Recent Honorees: Mary Heftel Hooton Award Recipent from 2011 WBAI Judicial Reception

Each year, the Women's Bar Association of Illinois recognizes a select number of distinguished jurists who have supported the WBAI's commitment to ensuring the success of women attorneys and advocacy for women’s interests by conferring this distinguished award.   The award’s namesake, Judge Mary Heftel Hooton, President of the WBAI in 1976, served in the pre-trial section of the Law Division in the First Municipal District at the Daley Center and was also supervising judge of contracts and torts in the First Municipal District.  In 1993, Judge Hooton bequeathed her estate to the WBAI for a permanent home, enabling the WBAI to acquire its current offices at the Chicago Bar Association building.

The WBAI had the honor of awarding its 2011 Mary Heftel Hooton Award to Hon. Charles P. Kocoras and Hon. Rita Novak.

Hon. Charles P. Kocoras
The Hon. Charles P. Kocoras has been a United States District Judge in Chicago since 1980. He served as Chief Judge of the Court from 2002 to 2006. During his more than thirty years on the bench, Judge Kocoras presided over thousands of cases in all areas of federal jurisdiction. He also served for six years as a member of the Criminal Law Committee of the Judicial Conference of the United States.

Before his appointment to the United States District Court, Judge Kocoras was a partner in the law firm of Stone McGuire Benjamin and Kocoras, where he concentrated his practice in the defense of federal criminal cases. Before that, Judge Kocoras had served as Chairman of the Illinois Commerce Commission, a position that followed seven years of service as an Assistant United States Attorney in Chicago.

As Chairman of the Illinois Commerce Commission, Judge Kocoras and four other commissioners were responsible for the regulation of privately owned utilities doing business in Illinois and the regulation of intra-state motor carriers. As an Assistant United States Attorney, Judge Kocoras was personally involved in the prosecution of over two hundred criminal cases with approximately twenty-five of those cases tried to the court or a jury. He also served in various supervisory positions, including First Assistant United States Attorney to two United States Attorneys. Judge Kocoras was the recipient of a Department of Justice Special Commendation Award for Outstanding Service in 1974 and, in 1976, he received the Department of Justice Director’s Award for Superior Performance as an Assistant United States Attorney.

Judge Kocoras attended night classes at De Paul University College of Law from 1965 to 1969 and graduated as valedictorian of his graduating class (day and evening divisions combined for class ranking). He has been an Adjunct Professor of Law at The John Marshall Law School since 1975 and was the recipient in January 2011 of the Award of Excellence as Adjunct Professor by the school.

Judge Kocoras also received an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Laws from The John Marshall Law School in 1999 and an Honorary Degree of Humane Letters from DePaul University in 2006. He was also honored with the Distinguished Judicial Service Award by the Intellectual Property Law Association of Chicago in 2006.

Judge Kocoras was a member of the Illinois Army National Guard from 1961 to 1967, with six months of active duty in 1961. He was the Honor Graduate in radio school at Fort Knox, Kentucky in 1961, and was presented with the Chicago Tribune Award for Outstanding Guardsman in 1965.

Hon. Rita Novak
The Hon. Rita Novak has been as an associate judge of the Circuit Court of Cook County since 1999. Following assignments in Law Division, Tax and Miscellaneous Remedies Section; child protection; domestic violence, and traffic court, she now serves in the Chancery Division.

Judge Novak spent most of her pre-judicial career in public service. She was chief of the civil appeals division of the Illinois Attorney General’s Office, an assistant professor of law at Indiana University at Indianapolis, and an assistant project director at the American Bar Association. Her practice focused on constitutional, regulatory, and employment law. She litigated cases in both federal and state courts of review. At the American Bar Association, she worked with state appellate courts throughout the country to assist them in reducing delay and co-authored a book, Delay on Appeal: A Process for Identifying Causes and Cures. Judge Novak is a graduate of DePaul College of Law and received an LL.M. from Columbia University School of Law.

Before starting on a career in the law, Judge Novak entered the Peace Corps, where she worked with groups of rural women in Colombia, South America. She maintains an abiding interest in Hispanic language and culture, as evidenced by serving as a member of the leadership council of the Midwest Immigrant and Human Rights Center and as a tutor in an after-school program at Casa Central, in Chicago’s Humboldt Park neighborhood. An active participant in professional associations, Judge Novak coordinated a mentor program for the Illinois Judicial Association, which paired judges with high school students from disadvantaged areas to enrich their learning experiences. She also chaired the Illinois Judicial Association’s Courtroom in the Classroom Committee, which featured a statewide program titled “7 Reasons to Leave the Party,” a drug and alcohol prevention program. Judge Novak coordinated the training of judges and the recruitment of schools in Cook County. To date, Illinois judges have presented the program almost 300 times and reached over 58,000 students. Judge Novak has held positions on the Illinois State Bar Association special committee on ethics, the access to justice advisory board, and section councils. She served on the boards of directors and other committees of the Women’s Bar Association of Illinois and the Appellate Lawyers’ Association. The Supreme Court appointed her to the executive committee of the Illinois Judicial Conference and to the Character and Fitness Committee. Judge Novak is a frequent faculty member for continuing judicial and legal education programs. She has also been an adjunct faculty member at Loyola University School of Law and IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law.

A life-long city dweller, Judge Novak lives in Chicago’s South Loop. She enjoys attending cultural events, foreign travel, and studying Spanish and Italian.