Sharon Johnson Coleman
How Judge Coleman decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
On personal jurisdiction she follows the modern-commerce view: physical presence in Illinois is unnecessary, and where a defendant's affidavits conflict with the record, the conflict is resolved in the plaintiff's favor at the prima facie stage. A defendant that purposefully sold/marketed into Illinois (here, a facial-recognition database sold to Illinois police and the Secretary of State) is subject to specific jurisdiction; the fiduciary-shield doctrine will not protect corporate CEOs/presidents.
“physical presence is not necessary for a defendant to have sufficient minimum contacts with a forum state.”
She will shift Lanham Act fees to a prevailing party in an 'exceptional case' (Octane Fitness totality test) when the losing side's position lacked a reasonable legal or factual basis or it abandoned a claim -- but she expressly protects good-faith novel arguments: advancing an untested theory alone does not expose a litigant to fees.
“Lawyers advancing such arguments will not be subject to the possibility of attorney fees unless—as here—their arguments lack a reasonable legal or factual basis.”
Procedural preferences
She enforces Local Rule 56.1 strictly on summary judgment: a party that fails to controvert the movant's statement of material facts with specific record citations has those facts deemed admitted. (She still construes the record in the nonmovant's favor, but the unanswered facts stand.) Answer the 56.1 statement paragraph-by-paragraph.
“RespLabs failed to submit a response to SoClean’s statement of material facts as required by Local Rule 56.1(b)(3). Accordingly, the Court deems SoClean’s facts admitted.”
Conclusory, underdeveloped, and unsupported arguments are treated as waived -- even a movant's own claims. In SoClean she faulted both sides for briefing copyright in 'less than one page' with no case law, and warned the bar to do better. Brief each element with authority or risk waiver.
“Because Plaintiff has failed to develop this argument, this Court finds that the argument has been waived. ... The Court expects more from members of the bar of this Court.”
Cautions
On antitrust (Robinson-Patman) standing she dismisses plaintiffs whose injury is remote or derivative of a more directly injured party, even if the plaintiff was in fact harmed: a non-purchaser whose damages are entangled with another product's market and whose harm flows only through a contract with the direct competitor is not a proper antitrust plaintiff.
“Thus, weighing all the factors, the Court finds that Power Energy lacks standing. It may have been injured, but Antitrust law requires more.”
An official-capacity claim for prospective/injunctive relief becomes moot when the named official leaves office, unless the plaintiff carries the burden of showing the successor will continue the challenged policy. After Mayor Lightfoot left office and the plaintiff failed to reapply under the successor, the suit was dismissed for want of jurisdiction. Plead (and show) an enduring institutional policy, not just one official's act.
“he cannot show any official action that reflects an institutional policy that can be presumed to persist under Mayor Johnson, Lightfoot’s successor. Thus, this matter is moot and has no jurisdictional basis.”
Motion outcomes
Counted from classified signed orders only. Percentages are shown only where the sample is large enough to be meaningful; smaller samples are reported as raw counts.
| Motions to dismiss N = 4 |
Granted: 3Denied: 1 | counts only |
| Summary judgment N = 4 |
Granted: 1Denied: 3 | counts only |
| Motions to transfer N = 1 |
Denied: 1 | counts only |
| Motion for attorney fees N = 1 |
Granted: 1 | counts only |
| Bill of costs N = 1 |
Granted in part: 1 | counts only |
| Motion for leave to amend N = 1 |
Denied: 1 | counts only |
A "1 of 1" is one ruling, not a tendency. Treat small samples as illustrative, not predictive.
Signed rulings
A grounded sample of orders signed by this judge, with the verbatim dispositive language.
“Accordingly, the Court denies defendants’ Rule 12(b)(2) motions because the Court has personal jurisdiction over all of the defendants.”
“after carefully considering and weighing the public and private interest factors, the Court, in its discretion, denies defendants’ motion to transfer venue.”
“the Court grants defendants’ Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1) motion to dismiss this lawsuit [11]. Civil case terminated.”
“For these reasons, this Court denies SoClean’s motion for summary judgment.”
“the Court grants in part and denies in part Mossuto’s Bill of Costs and grants Mossuto’s motion for attorney fees.”
“The Court grants in part and denies in part Defendant Rocco Mossuto’s Bill of Costs [84] and grants his motion for attorney fees [89].”
“The Court finds that Power Energy lacks standing. Thus, the Court grants defendants’ motion to dismiss and dismisses both Cr@zy Us and Power Energy from the case.”
“Based on the foregoing reasons, the Court grants defendants’ motion to dismiss with prejudice [33].”
“Additionally, Plaintiff’s motion for leave to file a second amended complaint is denied [48].”
“Based on the foregoing, this Court grants summary judgment in favor of the Commissioner.”
“Thus, summary judgment is denied as to both parties on the breach of contract claim.”
“For these reasons, this Court denies the parties’ cross motions for summary judgment.”
Caseload & timing
From public federal docket records for this judge.
Median case duration in the sampled dockets: 1062 days (N = 2).
Median motion-to-ruling time: 377 days (N = 1).
Active, large, varied caseload. A bare assigned_judge enumeration in mid-2026 surfaced almost entirely NEW 2026 filings: Schedule-A trademark counterfeiting suits (NBCUniversal, Deckers, J Brands), federal criminal (US v. Sharp, US v. Bazer), prisoner/civil-rights (Collazo v. Cook County Jail, Gee v. Cook County Public Defender), USCIS immigration mandamus (Sa.Yav. v. USCIS), and consumer/product-liability (Darr v. Gatorade, Wilson v. American Trench). The 8 GovInfo merits cases span BIPA/privacy (Clearview), antitrust (JUUL/Robinson-Patman), Lanham Act trademark (SoClean, Mossuto), 1983 civil rights (Ocampo, Kelly v. Lightfoot), Social Security (Slabon), and insurance-coverage (Redmond). Reassignment is common (Redmond came from Lefkow; Kelly came from Kendall), so a raw enumeration mixes inherited cases. Nature-of-suit is only partially/inconsistently reported in docket case-level metadata (e.g. Redmond and SoClean both mislabeled 'Contract: Insurance').