Rebecca R. Pallmeyer

Who is Rebecca R. Pallmeyer?

Rebecca R. Pallmeyer is a United States federal judge in the Northern District of Illinois.

Born in Tokyo, Japan, Judge Pallmeyer received a B.A. from Valparaiso University in 1976 and a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School in 1979. She was a law clerk to the Hon. Rosalie E. Wahl, Minnesota Supreme Court Justice, from 1979 to 1980. She was in private practice in Chicago, Illinois from 1980 to 1985 at the law firm of Hopkins & Sutter. She was an administrative law judge on the Illinois Human Rights Commission from 1985 to 1991. She was a U.S. Magistrate Judge, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois from 1991 to 1998.

Judge Pallmeyer was nominated by President Bill Clinton on July 31, 1997, to a seat vacated by Judge William T. Hart. She was confirmed by the United States Senate on October 21, 1998, and received her commission on October 22, 1998.

Judge Pallmeyer was the judge who coordinated the brief visits of former Governor and Secretary of State of Illinois, Governor George Ryan, who was then imprisoned in a Terre Haute, Indiana, federal prison, to his wife, former Illinois First Lady Lura Lynn Ryan, who died of cancer in the summer of 2011.