Supreme Court appoints Winston & Strawn partner

The Illinois Supreme Court has named Raymond W. Mitchell, a partner at Chicago's Winston & Strawn LLP, to the Cook County bench to fill the vacancy created by the retirement of Judge Marsha D. Hayes.

The appointment, effective October 14, will terminate on December 6, 2010, according to a press release today from the Illinois Supreme Court.

According to the Winston & Strawn website, Mitchell is a litigation partner at the firm who has concentrated "his practice in commercial and appellate matters." He was named one of the "top 40 lawyers under the age 40 by the publishers of the Chicago Lawyer magazine" in 2005. Mitchell was one of the Winston attorneys representing Smith & Wesson in the Chicago handgun litigation; he's also represented the Governor of Illinois in an appeal to the Illinois Supreme Court addressing the constitutional power of the Illinois Attorney General. (Unfortunately, the Winston website gives no additional details on this case.)

Mitchell earned an undergraduate degree in English from Loyola University Chicago in 1991. He graduated from Loyola Law School in 1993. Before joining Winston, in 1998, Mitchell clerked for 6th Circuit Circuit Judge James L. Ryan and, later, for former Illinois Supreme Court Justice James D. Heiple. According to the Illinois Supreme Court's release, Mitchell has also worked for Gardner, Carton & Douglas in Chicago and Shearman & Sterling in New York. Mitchell has also served as an adjunct professor of law at Northwestern School of Law.