The University of Illinois College of Law will honor Judge Heidi Ladd with the 2019 Distinguished Bench & Bar Award during this year’s homecoming festivities. The award recognizes an alumna/alumnus for their tireless service to the college and significant contributions to the profession. The award will be presented during an All Alumni Reception at the Albert E. Jenner, Jr. Law Library at 5:15 p.m. on October 18.

Judge Heidi Ladd currently serves as a circuit judge for the 6th Judicial Circuit in Champaign County, Illinois. She was appointed to the bench as an associate judge in 1999 and elected as a circuit judge in 2004. Prior to taking the bench, she was a lead prosecutor in the Champaign County State’s Attorney’s Office, where she worked for 18 years.

Judge Ladd is a graduate of the University of Illinois, where she obtained her bachelor's degree with high distinction and went on to earn her law degree at the College of Law in 1982. She has taught trial advocacy at the College of Law since 1993 and continues to teach for the Appellate Prosecutors Advanced Trial Advocacy Program and the Illinois Judicial Education Programs.

She previously served on the faculty of the National College of District Attorneys and has lectured for the ABA and in multiple states on issues concerning forensic DNA, evidence, and trial advocacy. In 2008, Judge Ladd was appointed by the Illinois Supreme Court to serve on the Special Supreme Court Committee on Illinois Evidence which drafted the Illinois Code of Evidence that was adopted by the Illinois Supreme Court in 2010.

In 2009 Judge Ladd received the Distinguished Alumna Award from the College of Law.