University of Illinois College of Law

About

Judge Heidi Ladd is a retired 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. Judge Ladd served on the bench for twenty-one years, and presided over both major civil and criminal cases. Prior to taking the bench, she was a lead prosecutor in the Champaign County State’s Attorney’s Office, where she worked for eighteen years.

Judge Ladd is a graduate of the University of Illinois, where she obtained her BA 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 Illinois Appellate Prosecutors Advanced Trial Advocacy Program.

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. She has also taught at the Illinois Judicial Education Programs. 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. She retired as Vice Chair of the Committee in 2019.

In 2009 Judge Ladd received the Distinguished Alumna Award from the College of Law and in 2019 she received the Bench and Bar Award from the College of Law. She was named a pillar of the Champaign County Bar in 2022.  

Education

BA, JD University of Illinois