Hon. Carole Kamin Bellows (1935-2026)

The Honorable Carole Kamin Bellows, a trailblazing Chicago lawyer and judge, died on May 29, 2026, in Evanston, Illinois. She was 91. Carole was the first woman in the United States elected to lead a state bar association and went on to serve more than three decades on the bench of the Circuit Court of Cook County.

Born Carole Kamin in Chicago on May 24, 1935, she was the daughter of Sara Kamin and Alfred Kamin, a prominent labor attorney and law professor. Carole grew up in Evanston and attended the city’s public schools. She graduated from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana in 1957 with a degree in political science. As an undergraduate she was active in student government, serving as a student senator and as an officer of the independent women’s group.

She graduated from Northwestern University School of Law in 1960 at a time when few women attended law school. In 1958, while in law school, she married Jason E. Bellows, also a Chicago lawyer, who would remain her partner and steadfast supporter until his death in 1980. When Carole graduated from law school there were few opportunities for women lawyers at private law firms. Carole began her legal career as a permanent law clerk to the Chief Judge of the Illinois Court of Claims.

In June 1961, only a year out of law school, she was appointed to the Bill of Rights Committee of the Chicago Bar Association which led to a half-century of service to the organized Bar. Through that committee and her later leadership posts in various Bar Associations, Carole became a forceful advocate for equal rights under law; and her work helped lay the groundwork for the modernization of Illinois law in the years leading up to the adoption of the 1970 Illinois Constitution. She also played a significant role in the unsuccessful effort to achieve ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment to the United States Constitution, which would have guaranteed equal rights to woman.

Within the American Bar Association, she was a founding member of the Section of Individual Rights and Responsibilities (now the Section of Civil Rights and Social Justice) from 1967 to 1977 that played a significant role in influencing civil rights reforms. Carole helped to shape the Section’s agenda during its formative years following its 1966 establishment. She became the Chairperson of the Section in 1975.

In 1969, she became the first woman elected to the Board of Governors of the Illinois State Bar Association, where she served until 1979. In 1977, she made history again, when she was elected President of the Illinois State Bar Association for the 1977–1978 term, becoming the first woman in the United States to be elected president of a State Bar Association. In 1978, she became the first woman to be elected to the American Bar Association House of Delegates. and served in that role until 1988. She also became the first woman to chair the Fellows of the American Bar Foundation. From 1983 to 1985, she chaired the ABA Standing Committee on Bar Activities and Services.

In addition to her extensive bar activities, Carole practiced law with her husband and father-in law at the firm of Bellows and Bellows. Following the deaths of both her husband and father-in-law, she became a partner in the prestigious Chicago law firm of Reuben and Proctor.

In 1986, the Supreme Court of Illinois appointed her to the Circuit Court of Cook County, Domestic Relations Division, where she served 32 years without interruption, including as the presiding judge of the division. She retired from the Bench in 2018. Lawyers and litigants who appeared before her remember her for her unfailing patience, her practical wisdom, and her steady insistence that even the most contentious family matters be handled with dignity and respect, particularly when children were involved.

During her time on the bench, she was a role model, champion and mentor for numerous female and minority lawyers and judges. Her honors included the Maurice Weigle Award for Outstanding Service to the Organized Bar from the Chicago Bar Foundation (1970); the Medallion of Honor from the University of Illinois Mother’s Association (1975); the Northwestern University Alumnae Award (1978); the Alliance for Women Founders Award (2006); the Samuel S. Berger Award of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, Illinois Chapter (2007); the Decalogue Society of Lawyers Lifetime Achievement Award (2008); the Illinois Judges Association Distinguished Service Award (2013); the Seymour Simon Justice Award of the Jewish Judges Association of Illinois (2013); and the Legal Luminary Award of the Illinois Bar Foundation and the Illinois Judges Foundation (2018).

In 2020, the Illinois State Bar Association created the Carole K. Bellows Women of Influence Award which is presented each year to women in the legal profession who advance the cause of women in the law.

Judge Bellows is survived by her three children, Marcia (Allan Brilliant) Bellows herself a lawyer, Douglas (Bonnie Stesin) Bellows, and Daniel (Karen) Bellows, and her beloved grandchildren, Jason Brilliant, Samuel Bellows and Arthur Bellows. She is also survived by her brothers Malcolm (Kay) Kamin and Chester (Nancy Schaefer) Kamin, as well as several generations of adoring nieces, nephews and cousins.

Carole Kamin Bellows opened doors that had long been closed to women. She belonged to a generation of pioneers who insisted, gently but unrelentingly, that the law was theirs, too—and she leaves behind a profession permanently bettered through her efforts and her example.

Memorial arrangements will be announced.