Hon. Michael J. Hood is an associate judge for the Cook County Circuit Court in Illinois. He was elected to the Circuit Court by the Cook County Circuit judges in 2014.
While on the bench, Hood has held an assignment in the Second Municipal District of the Municipal Department and has also presided over the Veterans Treatment Court since 2015.
He attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he received a B.A. in urban and regional planning in 1987. Hood went on to complete a J.D. at DePaul University College of Law in 1990. He also holds an LL.M. from the Judge Advocate General’s School of the Army.
After law school, Hood joined the United States Marine Corps, where he served as a trial attorney at both Camp Lejeune in North Carolina and Camp Pendleton in California. Hood, who served in the Marine Corps for nine years, held the rank of Major.
He began his civilian legal career as an assistant state’s attorney with the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office in 1999. During his ten-year tenure there, Hood served as supervisor of the Second Municipal District.
In 2009, he joined the Illinois Attorney General’s Office, where he was appointed by then-Attorney General Lisa Madigan to serve as deputy attorney general for Criminal Justice. As such, he was tasked with overseeing the office’s Criminal Enforcement, Crime Victims Services, and Investigations Divisions as well as coordinating its crime-fighting activities with the state, county, and local authorities. Hood continued in that position until 2013.
It was at that time, he became chief of Investigations and Intelligence with the Illinois Department of Corrections, a position he held until joining the bench in 2014.
Hood was a former ambassador to the Mercy Home for Boys & Girls and served as a past chair for the Our Lady of Perpetual Help Parish Council.