OREGON – A Mount Carroll attorney has been chosen to fill the 15th Judicial Circuit associate judgeship that will open when John F. Joyce retires Friday.

John “Jerry” Kane, 50, of Lake Carroll, was chosen by a vote of the circuit’s judges, Marcia M. Meis, director of the Administrative Office of the Illinois Courts, said in a news release Monday. He takes the bench Sept. 5.

Kane, of Leemon & Kane in Mount Carroll, received his undergraduate degree in 1989 from Illinois State University in Normal, and his juris doctor in 1992 from Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska.

He was one of five attorneys, including former Ogle County state’s attorney Michael C. Rock of Byron, to apply for the position.

The other applicants were Michelle B. Buckwalter-Schurman of Morrison; Tina J. Coffey of Dixon; and Anthony V. Coon of Freeport.

Joyce, 69, was appointed in 2001.

​The 15th serves Ogle, Stephenson, Lee, Carroll and JoDaviess counties.