Judge William Brady retires after 45 years as lawyer, judge

Judge William Brady stood in front of the judge’s bench in the third floor courtroom. He pointed to both of the tables behind him.

“I would sit there are a prosecutor; I would sit there as a defense attorney,” he said. Then he pointed at the judge’s chair. “Being able to sit there, the triangle is complete. It’s something that you can aspire to.”

Brady retired Sunday after 16 years as a judge and 45 years practicing law, beginning as an assistant state’s attorney in the DeKalb County State’s Attorney’s Office on Jan. 20, 1975.

“What I’ve been doing for the last 45 years is coming here,” he said, referring to the DeKalb County courthouse.

Despite his longevity in it, the law was not Brady’s planned career. It began as something he would do while he figured out what his passion was. As he wrapped up his undergraduate time at the University of Notre Dame, Brady said, he did not know what he wanted to do next.

“There was no incident that drove me to the law, it was something much more basic than that ... I had no idea what I wanted to do,” Brady said. “I figured the only thing I’ve been particularly good at was going to school, so I can go to school for three years figuring out what I wanted to do.”

Friends of his were taking the law school entrance exam, and Brady joined in. He did well and enrolled at Loyola University School of Law.

It was while he was in law school that he found he enjoyed the work.

“On happenstance, it became a career,” Brady said.

It’s not only the work he said he enjoys. Brady is also inspired by the results that working in and with the law can produce. He noted that more than half of the men who signed the Declaration of Independence were lawyers.

“It can effect change, it has effected change,” he said. “At every major point in our history where there’s been social change, it’s lawyers that have led the way.”

Working with people

Brady’s chambers were nearly bare early last week, the decorations and memorabilia already in boxes as he prepared to move out. A week prior, however, they were festooned with Notre Dame and Chicago Cubs memorabilia, he said. Underneath the glass top of his desks, both in his chambers and in Courtroom 300, he had photos of his family.

He took a personal approach with the cases he’s presided over. Asked which were the most memorable, Brady couldn’t say.

“I look at my cases as my children,” he said. “Tell me how I’m going to like one over any of the others, or one that’s more interesting than the others.”

What does stand out for Brady is that his role as a judge was to shepherd people through the judicial process, a process that could be confusing and frightening for the people standing in front of him. Some of the most meaningful interactions he had with people, Brady said, were over cases that weren’t memorable in themselves.

“They may be minor legally, but to them this is the only time they’re ever going to be in a courthouse,” Brady said. “They come with such trepidation, such uncertainty of what’s going to happen to them and being able to put them at ease and see that tenseness leave their faces, that’s very important. ... Are there cases that have more notoriety? Sure, but I’m not going to say they’re better or worse than any others.”

It was Brady who in 2017 presided over the proceedings that culminated in Jack McCullough being declared innocent of the 1957 murder of 7-year-old Maria Ridulph, a story that received national attention.

After more than four decades of practicing law, Brady said that many things had changed. Technology was a big one: at the time he became a judge in 2003, he had never sent a work email. Instead, he would come into the office to see a stack of pink slips with phone messages that he had to return. Now, business is conducted by text and email.

The state also used to periodically send books, updates on legal cases and law codes. Now, that’s all done digitally, he said. Just a few clicks and he has all the updated information he needs.

The people, however, have not changed.

“Be it the lawyers or the litigants, they’re the same people,” he said.

What’s next

Brady, who turns 70 in August, is not retiring because he no longer can do the work, he said. In fact, it’s the opposite.

“Leave while you still have the passion necessary to do the work,” Brady said. A friend of his told him that he should retire two years too early, as opposed to two years too late. “I’m leaving at a time where it’s going to be a loss to me.”

His immediate plans are simple: to spend more time with his grandsons, Michael and Liam, and the rest of his family – his wife, Christine, and his children, Erin, Sean and Kevin.

Before leaving the courtroom, Brady pointed to the floor in front of his bench in that third floor courtroom.

“When I got sworn in as an assistant state’s attorney, I got sworn in in this spot,” he said. “I can’t tell you how many cases I’ve tried in this courtroom.”