Judge Cale Bradford has been selected to receive the prestigious 2025 American Inns of Court Professionalism Award for the Seventh Circuit. Bradford has been a judge for the Indiana Court of Appeals since his appointment in 2007 and served as chief judge from 2020 to 2022. He will receive the award from Chief Judge Diane S. Sykes at the Seventh Circuit Judicial Conference in Chicago in August.

Bradford’s peers recognized him for his mentorship and sound advice. “[W]hether it be the Marion County Courts, the appellate bench meetings, a lawyers’ club somewhere, or our Inn of Court, when a tough decision needs to be made, the solution is often found when a member of one of those organizations starts their suggestion with, ‘Well, you know what Judge Bradford always says….,’” writes former mentee Timothy W. Oakes, now a judge at the Marion Superior Court, who nominated Bradford for the award. “Cale has always maintained a folksy and personal way of taking some of our most difficult situations or decisions in our lives and opening our eyes to a better solution.”

Before joining the Court of Appeals, Bradford served for more than a decade as a judge for the Marion Superior Court, spending seven years in the criminal division and three in the civil division and serving two terms as presiding judge. During that time, Bradford chaired the Marion County Criminal Justice Planning Council, a group of local officials who tackled jail overcrowding and other criminal justice challenges. The result of their efforts was the end of three decades of federal oversight of the county’s jail plus security improvements in the county’s juvenile detention system.

Prior to becoming a judge, Bradford worked in the Marion County Prosecutor’s Office, where he oversaw more than 100 attorneys. He was also an assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Indiana, where he prosecuted major drug trafficking cases. From 1986 to 1991, he was in private practice.

Bradford is a former board member of the John P. Craine House, a residential alternative to incarceration for women offenders with preschool-aged children.

Bradford earned an undergraduate degree in labor relations and personnel management from Indiana University Bloomington in 1982. He earned his law degree from the IU Robert H. McKinney School of Law in 1986. For more than a decade he has taught forensic science and the law as an adjunct university instructor.

The American Inns of Court, headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia, inspires the legal community to advance the rule of law by achieving the highest level of professionalism through example, education, and mentoring. The organization’s membership includes more than 30,000 federal, state, and local judges; lawyers; law professors; and law students in more than 350 chapters nationwide. More information is available at www.innsofcourt.org.

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