District
7 reviews
Of the many judges I have appeared before, Judge Chang is the best prepared judge I have ever argued before. He had read not only the relevant precedent but had also listened to audio of relevant Seventh Circuit arguments. Although it took a while for him to rule, his opinion was very scholarly and thoughtful. I was very impressed.
Of course he's a "prosecutor's judge." He was one of Fitzgerald's top prosecutors for a long time, and the one who sent Ryan to jail. He enjoys almost rock star status according to "American Lawyer" and others, but this man is completely biased and sides with government almost always, regardless of the evidence presented. He also has a problem multi-tasking and clearly needs to decide whether he wants to teach his law classes at Northwestern University or be a judge. He obviously has a problem doing both simultaneously and those who are awaiting decisions must put their lives on hold forever until he decides he has tme to be bothered working on their cases. He just appears to be disinterested. The Civil Justice Reform Act Report ALWAYS lists him as having dozens of motions pending for six or more months. See for yourself: http://www.uscourts.gov/Statistics/civilJusticeReformActReport.aspx. Northern District of Illinois judges can be found by clicking on the number 70 on the left of the page.
He is definitely a "Prosecuters" judge. Initially, he appeared to be unbiased. But as the cases proceeded, he almmost ALWAYS denied all Defendants motions and sided with the Governments view of issues presented.
This judge is horrificly slow in giving decisions on civil litigation motions. It is not uncommon to wait far more than a year to receive a ruling.
No rating, just an observation: the guy needs to stop wearing his gym shoes to court. I do not care how dark they are, they are gym shoes. And buy a suit too. Buy it and then start wearing it, consistently. Go talk to Hibbler, Norgle, Darrah and the other grown men on that bench, sport. They will show you what a suit looks like.
He is ok, but reminds me of aspen but without the suit. Judge Chang please start wearing suits when you are in public. For crying out loud, you are a judge, dresss like one when you are off the bench. Otherwise you look like a law clerk -- and a sloppy one at that. If you walked into Norgle's courtroom dressed the way you normally do, you would be arrested.
He is relatively new, knowledgeable and earnest. So far the temperament appears to be fine, but he has a tendency to believe that all schedules proposed by the parties are "on the long side." That said, so far so good. He is certainly a cut way above some of the others who darken the halls of 219 South.