Judge Robert Livas was born and raised in Chicago. After high school he graduated from the University of Illinois at Chicago while working full-time at International Harvester.

He began his career as a school teacher in the Englewood area, attending Northeastern Illinois to obtain his masters degree in education. When he began law school he left teaching to become a Chicago police officer. By now, married with a daughter, he again worked full time while going to school, this time as a police officer in the midnight shift in the dangerous Cabrini-Green housing projects and going to law school during evening session.

At John Marshall Law School he finished at the top of his class winning every major award his senior year.

Judge Livas and his family moved to Plainfield when he accepted a job in the Will County State’s Attorney office. Two years after joining the office he had become Chief of the felony division being responsible for the prosecutions of all Will County felonies and compiling a stunning trial record of seventy-nine convictions with just one loss.

Meanwhile, he and his wife opened the Village Valet Cleaners which is still in existence in downtown Plainfield. They opened a second store in Naperville, Judge Livas went into private practice as his daughter began to attend high school became more active in both the community and in Republican politics.

In the community he has been a member of St. Mary’s church, the Knights of Columbus, Plainfield Moose, Plainfield Lions, Moran A.C., the N.R.A., and I.S.R.A. and sits in the Executive Board of the Boy Scouts of America.

A member of the Will County Republican party for over 20 years, he served as a Republican Committeeman for over 12 years, was twice elected Chairman of the Wheatland Township Republican Organization, served as the Executive Director of the Will County Republican Party and created the first Will County Republican newspaper.

When he was appointed Associate Judge seven years ago, he became the first former police officer in Will County history to become a judge. After only nine months as the judge assigned to the  outlying areas of the county he was given a felony trial call where he has handled some of our area’s most challenging cases.

He established his reputation quickly, refusing in a number of cases to allow the State to reduce charges against sexual predators.

In the cases, he sentenced one pedophile to 234 years in prison and another to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

Judge Livas did the same with repeat domestic abuse offenders. Suspicious of the State’s offer to one defendant he stopped the proceedings so he could look up the defendant’s record himself. When he found that this individual has done this numerous times, he once again refused to allow the defendant to receive probation and imposed a prison sentence.

For years the law had considered the killing or abuse of an animal as essentially a crime against property. Judge Livas changed that in the “Lucky the Dog” case. There a defendant had stolen a puppy named Luck, held it for ransom and then killed the animal when the money wasn’t paid. Judge Livas, with the words “Human beings have constantly failed dogs, but no dog has ever failed a human being,” he rejected probation and sentenced the defendant to prison. The next year, the State again offered probation to a person who kept fighting dogs caged in a basement; once again he made his position known. With the words, “Now you’ll know what it’s like to be kept in a cage”. Judge Livas again imprisoned a defendant for animal abuse.