Cook County Judge Jean Prendergast Rooney Dead at an early age of 45

Cook County Circuit Judge Jean Prendergast Rooney was a skilled and dedicated attorney whose background and talents served her well on the bench.

"The law just suited her to a T," said friend and fellow attorney Julie Kemnitz. "It incorporated all her very best skills. She was methodical, she was thorough, she had a keen intellect.

"She had a sense of mission," said Kemnitz, who met Rooney when both started law school. "She wanted to work for justice, toward justice."

Rooney, 45, a resident of Chicago's Beverly neighborhood, died Tuesday of acute myeloid leukemia at the University of Chicago Medical Center, according to her husband, Tim. She was first diagnosed in September 2014 and had been treated with a stem cell transplant last May. "But the disease was never really in remission," her husband said.

The former Jean Prendergast was born in Oak Lawn. She attended St. Germaine Catholic School there, then went on to Mother McAuley Liberal Arts High School in Chicago. She became interested in the law while in high school, when she worked in the law firm of her uncle Richard Prendergast.

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