Honorable Helen F. McGillicuddy

Honorable Helen F. McGillicuddy Endowed Scholarship

Helen F. McGillicuddy was both a CPA and an attorney. She was an accounting faculty member at Northwestern University and a practicing CPA with the firm, David Himmelblau & Co. Helen was a silver medal CPA winner, having the second highest grade on the CPA exam in the late 1940s. In 1949, she was one of only six female DePaul University law graduates. She served as president of the Women’s Bar Association of Illinois from 1960 to 1961, was a Circuit Court of Cook County Judge from 1962 until 1976, when she was the first female elected to the Illinois Appellate Court. She retired from the Illinois Appellate Court in 1986 and died in 1990.

Her sister, Joan M. McGillicuddy, was an administrative executive for various agencies of the U.S. government. As part of Joan’s estate planning, she established the Honorable Helen F. McGillicuddy Endowed Scholarship in memory of her beloved sister.

Joseph Ament serves as attorney for the estate of the Honorable Helen F. McGillicuddy and as executor of the estate of Joan M. McGillicuddy. When Ament was a young CPA, Judge McGillicuddy was his mentor in public accounting and he worked under her direction in various audits in Chicago and Detroit. She was his inspiration for continuing his education after he received his MBA to proceed to law school. The two were friends from the time he was in his early 20s until her death.