Jill Judith Karofsky

She was born in Middleton on July 15, 1966. Her mother, Judy, served as mayor from 1975 to 1977; her father, Peter, was a pediatrician. At Middleton High School, class of 1984, she won the WIAA girls doubles tennis title in 1982 with Kristin Moe. She ran the 5,000 and 10,000 meters at Duke in the first year the Blue Devils fielded a women’s track team, then earned her law degree from the University of Wisconsin in 1992.

Her legal career ran through the Dane County District Attorney’s office, a stint as the state’s first Violence Against Women resource prosecutor, and service as a circuit judge. In 2020 she won a Supreme Court race that spent more than $10 million combined—then a record—taking about 55.21 percent of the vote. She was sworn in on August 1, 2020, by Justice Rebecca Dallet at mile 35 of a planned 100-mile run, a detail covered by the Wisconsin Examiner and the Journal Sentinel and later retold in Runner’s World.

She lives in Madison as a sitting justice. The raise that puts her on Middleton’s page is childhood: mayor’s daughter, Cardinal tennis champion, Middleton High class of 1984. Her mother’s two years as mayor are civic background, not a substitute for her own résumé.