Hon. Joseph G. McGraw is a circuit judge for the 17th Judicial Circuit Court of Illinois in Winnebago County. He was appointed to the bench in 2002.
The 17th Judicial Circuit includes Boone and Winnebago Counties.
During his judicial tenure, McGraw has served as the Chief Judge for the 17th Judicial Circuit Court, beginning his tenure in 2012. He was also the Presiding Judge in Boone County (2002 to 2003) and of the Felony Division.
Prior to his appointment to the bench, his legal career included working as an assistant state’s attorney in both Warren and Winnebago Counties. McGraw also spent time in private practice as a partner at Turner & McGraw and a sole practitioner of his own law firm, The Law Office of Joseph G. McGraw, Ltd.
He received a B.A. from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 1977. McGraw went on to complete a J.D. at Northern Illinois University College of Law in 1985.
He was admitted to practice in Illinois (1985), the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois (1989), the United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois, and the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.
McGraw served as chairman of the Illinois Conference of Chief Judges and has been an instructor for the Illinois Appellate Prosecutor’s Trial Advocacy Program. He also sat on the Illinois Supreme Court’s Special Committees on Minimum Continuing Legal Education and Judicial Ethics and was a former faculty member of the Illinois Supreme Court Committee on Capital Litigation.
McGraw was born and raised in Kankakee, Illinois, and attended Bishop McNamara Catholic High School. His father, Joseph William McGraw, operated a horseshoe manufacturing business.