Biography
Whitney Gingrich is Paralegal to U.S. District Judge Jonathan E. Hawley sitting in the Peoria Division of the Central District of Illinois. She has worked for the U.S. District Court for 28 years. She began her career as a member of the District Clerk’s office in June of 1997 holding positions of Intake Clerk, Docket Clerk, Jury Administrator and Back-up Courtroom Deputy during her six years with the Clerk’s office. In May of 2003 she became the Judicial Assistant for U.S. Magistrate Judge John A. Gorman until his retirement in 2014 when Magistrate Judge Jonathan E. Hawley replaced Magistrate Judge Gorman. On November 13, 2024 Magistrate Judge Hawley was appointed by President Biden as the next District Judge for the Central District and she moved to District Judge chambers with him. She is a long time member of the FJAA and has attended several annual conferences. She currently holds the position of 7th Circuit Representative. She served on the District Training Committee for both court staff and local bar when the district went live on CMECF and also served on the MJSTAR Committee when it replaced the JS43. She received her paralegal certificate from William Rainey Harper College in 1993 after receiving her Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of Iowa in 1991.Whitney was a paralegal for private law firms in Crystal Lake, Illinois and Springfield, Illinois as well as for the Mason County State's Attorney's office before joining the District Court in 1997.
Whitney spends her non-work time with her husband Chad or any of their four children ages 29 – 21. She loves to travel as her social media profile can attest. She has a twin sister living in Texas and parents in Iowa so simply seeing family accounts for a trip.
Whitney has attended FJAA conferences in Seattle, San Diego, Charleston, Minneapolis, San Francisco, Grand Rapids, Nashville, Tucson, New Orleans, and Denver. She has traveled to San Antonio, Omaha, Dallas, Orlando, Minneapolis and 7 times to Washington DC with the Courts due to her work on the CMECF training committee.