Kwame Raoul, the 42nd Attorney General of Illinois, has one of the more distinctive paths to a state AG’s office in the country: born in Chicago to Haitian immigrants, Cook County prosecutor, partner at two national law firms, and a 14-year Illinois State Senator who took over the State Senate seat that Barack Obama vacated when Obama was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2004. Raoul was sworn in as Illinois Attorney General on January 14, 2019, and re-elected in 2022 with 54% of the vote. His tenure has been defined by a heavy multistate antitrust portfolio, an active opioid-litigation practice, expansion of the AG’s consumer-protection authority, and the kind of large-state federal-policy litigation that has historically characterized the Illinois AG’s office.

Early life and immigrant family roots

Kwame Raoul was born September 30, 1964, in Chicago, Illinois. His parents were Haitian immigrants — his father a physician, his mother a teacher — and the family settled on Chicago’s South Side. The Haitian-American identity has remained central to Raoul’s public profile and to his work on immigrant-rights and anti-discrimination matters as Attorney General.

Education: DePaul and Chicago-Kent

Raoul earned his B.A. in political science from DePaul University in Chicago, and his J.D. from Chicago-Kent College of Law at the Illinois Institute of Technology. Both Chicago-based institutions reflect Raoul’s tightly-local educational and professional path, in contrast to the more typical Ivy-League trajectory of many state attorneys general.

Cook County prosecutor

Raoul began his legal career as an Assistant State’s Attorney in the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office, handling trial and appellate matters across the criminal, civil, and juvenile divisions. The Cook County prosecutor’s office handles the largest volume of criminal cases of any prosecutor’s office in the country outside of New York County, and the line-attorney experience there gave Raoul foundational exposure to the kind of cases that later defined his criminal-justice-reform legislative work.

Senior counsel at the City Colleges of Chicago

After his prosecutor years, Raoul served as Senior Staff Attorney for the City Colleges of Chicago, the city’s community-college system, handling primarily labor and employment matters. The City Colleges role gave him institutional experience with public-sector employment law that informed his subsequent legislative work on labor and education matters.

Private practice at two national firms

Raoul subsequently worked as a partner at two national corporate law firms, where his practice focused on commercial litigation, public-sector representation, and government-affairs work. He maintained an active legal practice through his Illinois State Senate years — a relatively common pattern in the Illinois Legislature, which historically has been a part-time body.

Illinois State Senate, 2004–2019

In November 2004, Senator Barack Obama was elected to the U.S. Senate from Illinois, vacating his Illinois State Senate seat in the 13th Legislative District. Raoul was appointed to fill the vacancy and was subsequently elected to full terms, serving fourteen years in the Illinois State Senate from January 2005 through January 2019.

His committee leadership during the State Senate years included chairmanships of the Senate’s Pension and Investment Committee — where he advocated for pension ethics reform during one of the most difficult periods in Illinois pension policy — and the Senate’s Redistricting Committee, where he introduced legislation creating the Illinois Voting Rights Act to protect racial and language minorities in the legislative redistricting process.

His legislative record during the Senate years was extensive: laws expanding access to early voting in Illinois, payday-loan-industry reform, criminal-justice reform legislation including post-conviction relief provisions and felony-disenfranchisement restoration, civil-rights legislation including expanded protections for domestic-violence victims, and the Illinois Voting Rights Act.

Election as Illinois Attorney General

In 2018, with longtime Illinois AG Lisa Madigan declining to seek a fifth term, Raoul entered the Democratic primary and won a competitive multi-candidate race. He went on to defeat Republican Erika Harold in the November 2018 general election with 54.6% of the vote, and was sworn in as Illinois’ 42nd Attorney General on January 14, 2019. He was re-elected in November 2022, defeating Republican Tom DeVore with 54% of the vote.

Notable cases and AG portfolio

The Catholic Church clergy abuse investigation and report

One of the defining initiatives of Raoul’s first term was the office’s multi-year investigation into clergy sexual abuse across the six Roman Catholic dioceses of Illinois. The investigation culminated in a May 2023 report identifying 451 Catholic clergy members and religious brothers with substantiated allegations of child sexual abuse across the dioceses — a dramatic increase from the 103 individuals the dioceses themselves had publicly named before the investigation. The report drew on access to internal diocesan records that the dioceses had not previously released and established a comprehensive accounting unprecedented in Illinois.

Opioid settlements

Illinois under Raoul has been a lead state in the multistate opioid litigation, with the office securing more than $1 billion across the various manufacturer-and-distributor settlements that emerged from the multistate work. The Illinois distribution framework directs a substantial portion of settlement dollars to local governments and treatment-and-prevention programs.

Multistate antitrust enforcement

Raoul has joined Illinois to the multistate antitrust actions against Google search, Meta, Visa, and Live Nation/Ticketmaster, and led Illinois’s state-level challenge in the Kroger-Albertsons merger fight that ended in the December 2024 federal court decisions blocking the transaction.

Police accountability under SAFE-T Act enforcement

Illinois’s Safety, Accountability, Fairness and Equity Today (SAFE-T) Act, enacted in 2021, gave the Attorney General’s office expanded authority in police-misconduct civil-rights enforcement. Raoul’s office has used that authority for systemic civil-rights investigations of police departments across Illinois, including consent-decree implementation work in Chicago following the 2017 Department of Justice consent decree.

Consumer protection and gun safety

Raoul’s office has brought consumer-protection enforcement actions against payday lenders, debt collectors, online marketplaces, and pharmaceutical companies under the Illinois Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act. He has also been an active participant in the multistate enforcement against ghost-gun manufacturers and other firearms-related consumer matters.

Federal-policy litigation since January 2025

Illinois has been one of the most active states in the multistate Democratic AG coalition’s federal-policy litigation following the 2025 transition, with Raoul’s office joining or leading actions on immigration, federal-employee due process, federal-funds disbursement, environmental protection, and federal-agency rulemaking.

Personal life

Raoul lives in Chicago. He is a survivor of prostate cancer, diagnosed in 2010, and has spoken publicly about men’s-health advocacy and screening since his diagnosis and treatment.

Frequently asked questions

What was Kwame Raoul’s career before becoming Illinois AG?

Raoul was an Assistant Cook County State’s Attorney, Senior Staff Attorney for the City Colleges of Chicago, and a partner at two national corporate law firms. He served fourteen years in the Illinois State Senate (2005–2019), including chairmanships of the Senate’s Pension and Investment Committee and the Senate’s Redistricting Committee. He was appointed to fill Barack Obama’s State Senate seat after Obama’s 2004 election to the U.S. Senate.

Did Kwame Raoul take Barack Obama’s seat?

Yes — Raoul was appointed in 2004 to fill the vacancy in the Illinois State Senate’s 13th Legislative District created when then-State Senator Barack Obama was elected to the U.S. Senate that November. Raoul was subsequently elected to full terms and served the seat for fourteen years.

What did the Illinois Attorney General’s clergy abuse report find?

The May 2023 report from Raoul’s office identified 451 Catholic clergy members and religious brothers with substantiated allegations of child sexual abuse across Illinois’s six Roman Catholic dioceses, a dramatic increase from the 103 individuals the dioceses themselves had publicly named before the investigation. The report drew on internal diocesan records the AG’s office obtained during the multi-year investigation.

What law school did Kwame Raoul attend?

Raoul earned his J.D. from Chicago-Kent College of Law at the Illinois Institute of Technology, after earning his bachelor’s degree in political science from DePaul University. Both institutions are in Chicago.

How long has Raoul been Illinois Attorney General?

Raoul was sworn in as the 42nd Attorney General of Illinois on January 14, 2019, and re-elected to a second term in November 2022. As of 2026 he is serving the second term. He succeeded Lisa Madigan, who had served as Illinois AG from 2003 to 2019.

Sources

This profile is part of TheCompleteLawyer.com’s series on the U.S. state attorneys general. Profiles are intended as a neutral biographical resource focused on professional and legal career; they are not endorsements and do not represent the views of TheCompleteLawyer.com.