Chicago City Wire

Clayton Harris has "rock solid" experience in politics and lobbying. But he has less courtroom experience than any Cook County prosecutor since the 1990s.

That was the assessment of veteran federal and state prosecutor Duane Deskins, who interviewed state's attorney candidate Harris during a City Club of Chicago event on Thursday.

“You have rock solid experience in the legal world in terms of government affairs and legislative affairs — 20 years of doing that — but it would be also equally true that if you are elected you would have the least Cook County prosecutor criminal court experience of any prosecutor in the last 30 years,” Deskins said, as reported in the Chicago Tribune. “Do you think you’re up to leading this kind of task?”

Harris responded that the position of Cook County State's Attorney is about far more than "legal experience."

“But if someone is reliant on strictly the legal experience — the time in the office — as the bona fide on whether they should be the next Cook County state’s attorney, then they grossly misunderstand the role of the state’s attorney,” he said.

Harris, backed by outgoing State's Attorney Kim Foxx, has stated his focus will be on "exonerations" and "restorative justice," if elected.

Harris last worked as a lawyer in a courtroom in March 2003, according to his Linkedin page. He has since worked in politics, for former Mayor Richard M. Daley and Governor Rod Blagojevich, as a lobbyist and as a college professor.

Harris' opponent in the March 19 Democratic primary, retired Illinois Appellate Court Judge Eileen O'Neill Burke, will speak at the City Club on Monday, March 11.

O'Neill Burke worked ten years in the Cook County State's Attorney's office (1991-2001) and has served on the bench since 2008.

Deskins worked as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Chicago, Los Angeles and Cleveland from 1982-2013. He also spent two years working in the Cuyahoga County, Ohio prosecutor's office, serving as chief of its juvenile division.

He's a 1979 graduate of Boston College Law School.