The Hon. Christen L. Bishop is a judge for the Lake County Circuit Court in Illinois. She was appointed to the bench by the Illinois Supreme Court on February 1, 2016, filling a vacancy created by the retirement of the Hon. Christopher Starck.
Bishop has held assignments in the Felony Section of the Criminal Division in Lake County. She currently sits as the Presiding Judge of the Restorative Justice Division.
Prior to her appointment, Bishop was an associate judge for the Lake County Circuit Court, a position to which she was named in 2012. Before that, she was an assistant state’s attorney for the Lake County State’s Attorney’s Office (1995 to 2012). During her tenure there, she held assignments in the traffic, misdemeanors, felony review, juvenile narcotics, and felony trial divisions, rising through the ranks to become Chief of the Juvenile Division (2001) and Chief of the Special Investigations Division (2006).
Bishop earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 1991. She then completed a J.D. at the University of Illinois College of Law in 1994.
Her memberships have included the Lake County Chiefs of Police Association, the Illinois Judges Association, the Association of Women Attorneys of Lake County, and the Jefferson American Inn of Court. She also co-founded the Lake County Law Related Education Initiative, and she sat on the Illinois Supreme Court Justice & Mental Health Planning Committee.
She is a recipient of the Juvenile Officers’ Association Hall of Fame Award (2012), the Fred L. Foreman Criminal Justice Award (2013), and the Juvenile Justice Award (2004).
Raised in Olney, Illinois, Bishop attended East Richland High School. Her mother taught language arts, and her father worked for Country Companies Insurance. Bishop and her husband, Gregory, have two children.