Justice Sanjay T. Tailor was born in Maryland to immigrant parents, grew up in New Jersey and Delaware, and earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in biological sciences from the University of Delaware. After working in a genetics research laboratory for one year, he changed course and went to Loyola University Chicago School of Law, where he earned his Juris Doctor degree with honors. Illinois then became his home.

Justice Tailor practiced law as an associate at Chapman and Cutler, as in-house counsel at the First National Bank of Chicago, and as a Cook County Assistant State’s Attorney, where he litigated high-profile cases and supervised other assistant state’s attorneys.

Before his appointment to the Illinois Supreme Court as its first Asian American justice on January 30, 2026, Justice Tailor served on the trial and appellate courts for 23 years. In 2003, he was appointed associate judge of the circuit court of Cook County. Between 2003 and 2021, he was assigned to the circuit court’s Traffic, Municipal, Domestic Relations, Law, and Chancery Divisions. In January 2021, the Illinois Supreme Court appointed him an at-large circuit judge, and he was simultaneously named presiding judge of the circuit court’s County Division. He also served on the circuit court’s Executive Committee, as well as the Associate Judge Nominating Committee, where he helped vet and “short-list” candidates for appointment to associate judge. In 2022, Justice Tailor was elected to Cook County circuit judge and, that same year, the Illinois Supreme Court assigned him to serve as a justice of the Illinois Appellate Court, First District.

Justice Tailor serves as a Court Liaison to the Illinois Judicial College, the body entrusted with the continuing education and training of Illinois judges and their justice partners, including probation officers, court clerks, guardians ad litem, trial court administrators, law clerks, and pre-trial administrators. He was also a commissioner of the Illinois Supreme Court’s Commission on Access to Justice, and a board trustee of the Judges Retirement System of Illinois. He previously served on the Illinois Supreme Court’s Judicial Performance Evaluation Committee. As an adjunct faculty member at Loyola, Justice Tailor taught a course on Illinois civil procedure for two decades.

Justice Tailor is a past president and director of the Lawyers Club of Chicago, the second oldest bar association in Chicago. He is the immediate past president of the Asian American Judges Association of Illinois. Justice Tailor is also a past president and board director of Apna Ghar, a domestic violence agency serving the Asian American community in the Chicagoland area. In addition, for 25 years, he served as a board director of Impact for Equity (f/k/a Business and Professional People for the Public Interest), a public-interest law and policy center combating racial, economic, and social injustice affecting Chicagoland’s most disadvantaged communities.

Justice Tailor and his wife Kallolini have three adult children.