Looking more closely at the Short List finalists -- Part IV

Updated August 23, 2021

Updated August 21, 2021

Updated August 19, 2021

In this last of a four-part series, FWIW completes its look at each of the 44 finalists for Cook County Associate Judge. For Part I of this series, click here. Part II can be found at this link, while Part III may be found here. Updates may be posted as new information becomes available.

Parle M. Roe-Taylor is a career Cook County Assistant Public Defender. Currently (since 2019) she serves as Deputy Public Defender for Municipal Operation, Litigation and Support. In that role she is an executive team member to the Public Defender on policy, strategy, and court operations.

Roe-Taylor has also served as Chief of the First Municipal Division and Chief of the Fourth Municipal Division of the Public Defender's Office. She has been licensed to practice law in Illinois since 1990, according to ARDC.

Pamela Saindon has been a principal attorney with the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago since 2012. Since 2018 she has been assigned to the User Change and Ordinance Enforcement Division.

Licensed to practice in Illinois since 1995, according to ARDC, Saindon began her legal career as a law clerk for Appellate Court Justice William Cousins, Jr. and, later, for Supreme Court Justice Charles Freeman.

Saindon worked for the Chicago Housing Authority before moving to the MWRD. Saindon has also taught legal writing at UIC John Marshall Law School for the past nine years. FWIW readers will recall that Saindon had been exploring a possible 2022 run for the bench before she became a Short List finalist.

Eric Michael Sauceda is a career Cook County Assistant State's Attorney. Though presently a supervisor in the office, Sauceda spent more than six years as a lead prosecutor at 26th and California. He has been licensed to practice law in Illinois since 1999, according to ARDC.

Sauceda is a leader of the "Hispanic resource group" within the SAO and Vice President of Club Guadalupano, a service and scholarship organization in the Northwest suburbs. Sauceda was a finalist in the 2019 selection process.

Theresa Marie Smith Conyers was also a finalist in the 2019 selection process. She has been licensed to practice law in Illinois since 1999, according to ARDC.

Smith Conyers currently serves as an Assistant Corporation Counsel Suprervisor in the Labor Department of the City of Chicago Department of Law. She also chairs the Training Subommittee for the Department of Law's Committee for Inclusion and Diversity.

Smith Conyers began her legal career as an Assistant Cook County State's Attorney, rising to First Chair in the Special Prosecutions Bureau. As an ASA, Smith Conyers handled financial crimes, public corruption, money laundering, murder, police shootings, and mortgage fraud cases. She left that office in 2017.

Joan Ellen Smuda served as a Cook County Circuit Judge pursuant to appointment by the Illinois Supreme Court in 1995-96. She ran for a 10th Subcircuit vacancy in 2008. Smuda has been licensed to practice law in Illinois since 1978, according to ARDC.

Smuda worked as an Assistant Illinois Attorney General both before and after serving on the bench. She currently serves as Chief of the Revenue Litigation Bureau in that office. At the outset of her career, Smuda worked for bankruptcy attorney Peter Francis Geraci, leaving to set up her own private practice from 1983 to 1990.

After leaving the bench, and before rejoining the AG's Office, Smuda worked as a Legal Analyst for the Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County and, from 1999 to 2001, as legal counsel for the State of Illinois Liquor Control Commission. A former President of the Advocates Society (1989-1990), Smuda also served as President of the National Advocates Society from 2005-2007. From 1999 to 2001, Smuda also served as General Counsel to the Polish Roman Catholic Union of America, the first and only woman appointed to that position in the nearly 150-year history of that fraternal benefit organization.

Ankur Srivastava is an Assistant United States Attorney specializing in public corruption and organized crime cases. Before joining that office Srivastava was a Cook County Assistant State's Attorney. He began his legal career with Sidley Austin after graduating from Yale Law School. He has been licensed to practice law in Illinois since 2005.

Srivastava is a past President of the Asian American Bar Association and of the South Asian Bar Association. He has been an adjunct professor at both Northwestern and DePaul Law Schools.

Pamela J. Stratigakis has been licensed to practice law in Illinois since 2001 and is employed by Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith LLP, according to ARDC.

Stratigakis was a Cook County Assistant State's Attorney from 2003-2019 before moving into private practice. In the State's Attorney's Office, Stratigakis rose to First Chair in the Felony Trial Division. She also served on the Internet Sex Crimes Against Children Task Force and was engaged in what a prior CBA evaluation referred to as "groundbreaking litigation against people involved in Internet sex crimes." She was a candidate for a 9th Subcircuit vacancy in the 2020 primary.

Anthony Charles Swanagan served as a Cook County Circuit Court judge pursuant to Supreme Court appointment in 2017-2018. Licensed to practice law in Illinois since 1987, Swanagan is currently employed as an Assistant Illinois Attorney General, according to ARDC.

Before his bench appointment, Swanagan worked as a career clerk to U.S. District Court Judge Andrea R. Wood of the U.S. District Court. He also clerked for Justice William White in the Illinois Appellate Court, and for Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman of the U.S. District Court. Earlier in his career, Swanagan worked for Jones, Ware & Grenard and served as corporate counsel for Galileo International, Inc.

Andreana Ann Turano is an Assistant Cook County State's Attorney and has been licensed to practice law in Illinois since 1993, accroding to ARDC.

Turano currently serves as Supervisor in the Second Municipal District of the SAO. A career assistant, Turano was a First Chair in the Felony Trial Division from 2003 to 2012 before becoming Deputy Supervisor in the Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence Division. She assumed her current role in 2018.

Turano has been an adjunct professor at UIC John Marshall Law School since 2012. She was also a National Faculty Instructor with the National District Attorneys Association from 2015-18. Turano has provided constitutional law instruction since 2017 through the CPS Lawyers in the Classroom Program at Federico Garcia Lorca Elementary School. She has also served as a Mentor with Big Brothers Big Sisters of Metropolitan Chicago.

Scott William Tzinberg practices family law with the Law Offices of Scott Tzinberg. He has been licensed in Illinois since 1996, according to ARDC.

His firm bio notes that Tzinberg was appointed to the Supreme Court Committee on Equality in 2017. He has been active with the UIC/John Marshall Alumni Mentor Program – mentoring law students, exposing them to family law cases, and introducing them to the Court system.

Timothy W. Wright, III is Managing Partner of Operations in the Chicago office of the national firm of Quintairos, Prieto, Wood & Boyer, P.A. His firm bio notes that he also practices from the firm's Los Angeles office -- surely the only Short List finalist who can make that claim.

Wright's LinkedIn profile notes that he also holds a Doctor of Ministry from McCormick Theological Seminary. Wright served as Special Counsel and Director of Intergovernmental Affairs for Chicago Mayor Harold Washington and was the Commissioner of the Department of Economic Development for the City of Chicago under two administrations. He also served as President William Clinton’s first Director of Domestic Policy and in various capacities in the administrations of Presidents Clinton, George H. Bush and George W. Bush. He was Chief of Staff for Congressman Bobby L. Rush. He has served as a Director for the Southern African Economic Development Fund and as a Director of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago. Wright has also served as Chairman of the Sub-Saharan African Advisory Committee of the Export-Import Bank of the United States. He has been licensed to practice law in Illinois since 1984, according to ARDC.