Speaker Bio

Deanie Brown is a Springfield attorney and the Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer for the Administrative Office of the Illinois Courts and the Judicial Branch and court services.

She has been associate chancellor, chief of staff, and director of HR and internal relations at universities in Illinois, California, and New Orleans, and serves on several boards supporting equity, education, the community, and the arts.
Her expertise includes nondiscrimination and human rights law, social justice advocacy, and culturally competent conflict resolution. Deanie has served attorneys throughout the state as a member of the Hearing Board for the Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission and has been a member of the ISBA since 2008.

She earned a bachelor’s degree in art and architectural history from the University of Illinois at Chicago and her law degree at the University of Illinois at Urbana, where she taught Rhetoric as a graduate instructor and was a founding editor and contributor for the literary journal Poetic Justice, and also writing workshop coordinator and Griot journal editor for the African American Cultural Center.

In addition to her law-related work in higher education, Deanie clerked for a small plaintiff’s law firm in Chicago and for the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation at the Department of Labor in Washington, D.C. during law school.