Vincent F. Cornelius has been elected third vice president of the Illinois State Bar Association (ISBA). He will serve one year in each of three vice presidential offices and then become president of the statewide organization in 2016. Cornelius is the principal of The Law Offices of Vincent F. Cornelius, with offices in Wheaton and Joliet, where he concentrates in civil and criminal litigation.

Cornelius, who will become the ISBA’s first African-American president, was appointed in June 2011 as an At-large member of the ISBA Board of Governors. The at-large position was established to provide leadership opportunities for under-represented segments of the association and its governance. He was first elected to the Board of Governors in 1999 as a downstate Under Age 37 member.

Cornelius was an associate with the law firm of James D. Montgomery and Associates, the predecessor firm of Cochran and Montgomery in Chicago, where he practiced in the areas of civil and criminal litigation. He is also a former DuPage County Assistant State’s Attorney. Cornelius was president of the Illinois Bar Foundation from 2008-2010, he has served as a member of the Governor’s Commission on Criminal Law Reform, and as Chancellor of the ISBA’s Academy of Illinois Lawyers.

Cornelius received his law degree in 1989 from Northern Illinois University College of Law, in DeKalb, and his B.B.A. in 1986 from the University of St. Francis, in Joliet, where he was an Academic All American.

The 32,000-member ISBA (isba.org), with offices in Springfield and Chicago, provides professional services to Illinois lawyers, and education and services to the public through a website (illinoislawyerfinder.com), a cable television program (“Illinois Law”), consumer brochures, and distribution of legal information.