Elizabeth Levine Levy has been appointed as an associate judge to the Third Circuit of Madison County. She will replace Judge Richard Tognarelli, who was elected a circuit judge.
“I think it’s the right time for me,” Levy said.
Levy, 60, earned a law degree from Washington University in 1974 and is currenly a partner at the law office of Levy & Stipes. In the past she was a professor at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. Her focus is in family law, and she hopes to maintain that focus as a judge.
According to Levy, the law profession gets “a bad rap.”
“By and large, most lawyers I know work very hard for their clients, and most judges have tried to do what’s fair and what’s right,” Levy said. “I think being a lawyer is an honorable profession and being a judge is a great responsibility, and I hope I am able to dispense justice with an arm of fairness.”
In addition to her law practice, Levy is the first vice president of the Madison County Bar Association and has served the court committee of the Family violence Prevention Council for more than 10 years.