Maureen Patricia O’Leary

Name: Maureen Patricia O’Leary

Age (as of Election Day): 52

Current residence: Chicago, Edgewater neighborhood

Current position: VP of claims and litigation at Aperion Care Inc., 2014-present

Past legal experience with years of each job: Managing attorney, Law Office of Maureen P. O’Leary, 2008-present; associate, Susan E. Loggans & Associates, 2004-07; Cook County assistant state’s attorney, 2003; Supreme Court Rule 711 licensee and prosecutor, City of Chicago Law Department, 2001-03

Campaign funds available, July 1 to Dec. 31: N/A. Committee not created with state elections board until Jan. 21.

Campaign funds spent, July 1 to Dec. 31: N/A. Committee not created with state elections board until Jan. 21.

Law school: The John Marshall Law School, 2002

Campaign website: maureenolearyforjudge.com

Family: Two sons

Hobbies/interests: Music, attending neighborhood festivals, reading and travel.

Have you ever run for office before?

No.

Why should voters support your candidacy?

I firmly believe in the fair and unbiased administration of justice. I am unbelievably transparent. I do everything on my part to be impartial on every level, and act with honesty and fairness. If anyone knows me, they know when I get to a situation, for example in a long-term care facility, and I find something terrible has happened — if I find out there’s been any sort of malfeasance or cover-up, I will take the entire staff, sit them down and drill them on the importance of honesty. That is such a virtue. I can’t even explain. That is me. I am that person.

Why do you want to be a judge?

So, a trial judge is different than what we’re speaking to here, the appellate court judge. I am extremely aligned with that type of judge, not so much the day-to-day kind of running of a trial. But rather, you have the research, the reading. You have litigants advocating for their client, and you’re taking all of that into consideration. That type of level — that level is what I’m most interested in.

What was the most interesting case you handled as a lawyer?

It was for a home-health agency that did early intervention, the largest in the state at the time. It was alleged they’d committed Medicaid fraud and were being fined a lot of money. They were convinced they’d done nothing wrong. Two big law firms before me had taken it on, and they said, “No, you need to settle.”

I spent almost a year preparing for that. There was no electronic record back in the day. Just all kinds of medical records. We subpoenaed witnesses, had people come in from Springfield, hired an expert. It was almost a year later, the night before closing arguments on a Monday, the chief judge told us, “Your administrative law judge has left the bench.”

I thought, “That can’t be true.” They wouldn’t give me an answer (as to why). They talked about a mistrial, but my clients absolutely could not go through that again. They were emotionally beaten up.

They assigned another administrative law judge, and fortunately the hearings were all recorded, and she listened to all the recordings. She wasn’t in the courtroom, so we did a lot of phone conferences. It was very emotionally trying.

In the end, not a single violation was found. It was an incredible experience. That one had such a different twist — that definitely is not one where I expected the outcome.

What would you consider your greatest career accomplishment?

I’d say the most recent that we have in this field is an arbitration issue, and we’ve gone for a number of years now trying to enforce the validity of this arbitration agreement in a long-term care facility. We’ve been battling with plaintiffs’ counsel, and back in, I think 2016, CMS, the Centers for Medicare came out with their stance. I think they gave us six weeks, nationwide, all facilities must remove those arbitration terms from the contract or we will cut your funding.

Within a month and a half or two months, one of the courts in Mississippi challenged them and it went up to the U.S. Supreme Court pretty quickly. They came back and said, “No, CMS, you are not the legislature, you can’t make the law. The arbitration agreements have been enacted since 1925, and they supersede state law.” And that was a huge victory for us in this area. CMS almost immediately retracted their statement, saying “We agree, but we want to take time to figure out guidelines.”

So they withdrew their prohibition, and over the next couple of years they took questions and went back and forth. It came out six, seven months ago — and throughout this time, I’d been creating and drafting my arbitration terms for my buildings.

I’d have four different judges giving four different opinions. Because of that, on every single ruling, I’ve been adjusting and editing our arbitration agreements to be in line with the decisions. And finally, CMS came out with their statement. They spelled out a number of things, 99% of what they said was what my arbitration agreement already said.

Plaintiffs’ counsel said we weren’t educating the facility families, and I went and drafted and directed a video with the help of a production company. And I had it put out in every single facility — I can’t even tell you how many residents, they’re required to watch this — and have this arbitration agreement across all four states now. I sent it, one of the judges saw my arbitration agreement and wrote a 10-page opinion based on it. A judge next to me at an arbitration meeting asked if they’d autograph the opinion.

… Not only that, but I did presentations. I presented to social workers, administrators, and presented on the arbitration agreements as well.

What qualities do you plan to bring to the bench?

I feel like I’m extremely diligent, honest, impartial. Integrity is my No. 1. I feel like I connect with being able to read and analyze legal concepts and have legal reasoning for why I go one way or another, just in terms of the hundreds of motions I’ve presented. I have a keen sense of zeroing in and quickly finding issues and being able to eliminate the excess, and then apply the most relevant law and make decisions as to how I manage these cases. Currently I oversee about 180 open cases.