On the Bar with the Kane County Bar Association
The Kane County Bar Association has a podcast!
On the Bar with the Kane County Bar Association is a behind the scenes look into the local legal community. The third series of podcast episodes, titled Life Before Law, is hosted by KCBA member Andrew Whitfield.
About the Host
Find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Anchor.
Andrew G. Whitfield is the Immediate Past President of the Kane County Bar Association. Andrew is an Assistant Attorney General at the Illinois Attorney General’s Office, where he is the Deputy Chief of the Statewide Grand Jury Bureau. In that capacity, Andrew investigates and prosecutes multi-county drug trafficking, gunrunning, and money laundering offenses that are brought through various federal, state, and local agencies. Andrew has prosecuted cases in the following counties: Boone, Cook, DuPage, Grundy, Kane, Kendall, Lake, Lee, Whiteside, and Will.
Andrew was also an Assistant State’s Attorney in Kane County for eleven years. Andrew is a member of the Judicial Evaluation Committee for Counties Outside Cook and the Corrections and Sentencing Committee, the Prosecutor Bar Association, and has given several presentations regarding topics such as drug-induced homicide, Fourth Amendment search and seizure issues, jury instructions, and other criminal law related topics to other prosecutors and law enforcement during his time at the Kane County State’s Attorney’s Office and Illinois Attorney General’s Office.
Andrew can be reached at whitfieldandrewg@gmail.com
The Circuit Judges of the 16th Judicial Circuit elected Robert K. Villa as Chief Judge effective Monday, December 4th, 2023. Judge Villa is a graduate of the University of Illinois, Urbana (LAS ’92) and the DePaul College of Law (’95). From 1995-1998, Judge Villa served in the Illinois Attorney General’s Criminal Appeals Division as lead counsel on appeals involving statutory and constitutional issues before the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, the Supreme and Appellate Courts of Illinois and the United States District Courts of Illinois. After leaving government service, Judge Villa was a litigation partner in the Chicago offices of Dykema Gossett PLLC and in 2007, he founded the Villa Law Firm, LLC in St. Charles, which became Griffin/Villa/Williams LLP in 2011. Judge Villa was appointed to the position of Associate Judge in April, 2013. On December 17, 2018, the Illinois Supreme Court appointed Judge Villa to the position of Circuit Judge. He was later elected as Circuit Judge of the Sixteenth Circuit, Third Sub-circuit in November of 2020. He has presided over all manner of civil and criminal cases, recently serving as the Presiding Judge of the Misdemeanor/Traffic Division. In 2021, Judge Villa was assigned to the Civil Law Division where he presided until his Chief Judge term began.
Mark Stajdohar is an Assistant State’s Attorney who has worked in the criminal division of the Kane County SAO for over 23 years. He is currently assigned to the Major Crimes Unit. Mark grew up in Naperville and studied political science at Illinois State University. He then went on to Duke University School of Law. He lives in Kane County with his wife, his son and his daughter.
Lori Schmidt is a an Assistant State’s Attorney with the Kane County State’s Attorneys Office. She has served as a Prosecutor for over 20 years. She is the Executive Director of the Kane County Child Advocacy Center and the Supervisor of the Crimes Against Children Prosecution Unit. Prior to becoming an Assistant Kane County State’s Attorney, she was employed with the Cook County Public Guardian’s Office. She is a member of the Illinois Child Death Review Team. She has previously served as a co-chair of the Kane County Bar Association Criminal Law Committee. She was awarded the Kane County State’s Attorney’s Office Prosecutor of the Year Award in 2014. She was previously sworn in as a special prosecutor in DuPage and Kendall Counties in Illinois. She received her J.D. from The John Marshall Law School.
Dr. Vohra is a general pediatrician who holds degrees in law and public policy. He is a cross-disciplinary leader in state and national health policy formulation, and his recent focus has been on improving health outcomes in Central and Southern Illinois. Prior to his appointment, Dr. Vohra was the Founding Chair of the Department of Population Science and Policy, a practicing primary care pediatrician, and an Associate Professor of Pediatrics, Public Health, Medical Humanities, and Law at the Southern Illinois University – School of Medicine (SIU-SOM) in Springfield, Illinois, where he also served the State of Illinois as the Interim Chair of the Children’s Mental Health Partnership.
John Kezdy graduated from Northwestern University and DePaul College of Law. He became a prosecutor following law school and spent over twenty years at the helm of the Statewide Grand Jury Bureau at the Office of the Illinois Attorney General. There, John prosecuted thousands of drug traffickers and firearms traffickers over his esteemed career. He was a frequent lecturer to law enforcement and was well known for his willingness to take on the tough cases. His career was filled with accolades from numerous local, state and federal law enforcement partners. He was constantly seeking to improve the law and to hold bad actors accountable.
Carolyn D. Jansons is a graduate of Northern Illinois University and a 2001 graduate of Northern Illinois University College of Law, magna cum laude. She graduated from Northern Illinois University College of Law and was a member of the Law Review. Carolyn is a partner at Drendel & Jansons Law Group, the same firm in which she began her career in 2001. Carolyn is an active member of the Kane County Bar Association having served on its board of directors and eventually elected Secretary/Treasurer. Carolyn ascended through the ranks and was the KCBA President in 2017-2018. Carolyn continues to be an active member of the Family Law Committee and focuses her practice on family law. 
Otto S. Hurtado is a family law attorney, certified mediator, Guardian ad Litem, and co-chair of the Judicial Evaluation Committee. He owns and operates The Law Office of Otto S. Hurtado, located in Geneva, Illinois, and primarily handles family matters (Divorce, Parentage, Adoptions, Orders of Protection, etc.) in Kane, DuPage, Kendall, and DeKalb Counties.
Born in Guanajuato, México, Judge Valdez and his family moved to Elgin, Illinois, when he was a child. He graduated from Larkin High School and then went on to study political science and public administration at Augustana College. His law degree is from the University of Iowa. He practiced law in Elgin for twenty years, the last ten as a solo practitioner offering services in criminal, family and real estate law. He was appointed as an associate judge in 2019 and then as a circuit judge in 2022.
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Elizabeth Flood is a graduate of Larkin High School in Elgin. She received degrees in both Finance and Law at the University of Illinois. She worked at the the Kane County State’s Attorney’s Office for seventeen years in both the criminal and civil divisions, before being appointed as an Associate Judge in 2013. In October of 2019, the Illinois Supreme Court appointed Judge Flood to Circuit Judge, and she was the fifth female in Kane County to be elected Circuit Judge in 2020. As a judge, she has presided over Traffic/Misdemeanor, Family, and Criminal Felony courtrooms, and served as the Presiding Judge of the Family Division.
Judge Bradley David was appointed to the position of Associate Judge in 2019. Since being appointed to the bench, he has previously served in Traffic/Misdemeanor and Family Court and currently sits in Divorce Court. Prior to his appointment to the bench, Judge David was in private practice and took on a variety of roles at David & Associates. David is a graduate of Dundee-Crown High School, the University of Illinois and Northern Illinois University School of Law.
The Honorable Clint Hull is the current Chief Judge of the 16th Judicial Circuit. Judge Hull was appointed to the position of Associate Judge in March of 2009.