Diane S. Sykes

Diane Schwerm Sykes (born December 23, 1957) is a federal judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and former Justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

Background

Sykes graduated from Brown Deer High School in 1976 and then earned a B.S. degree in journalism at Northwestern University in 1980 and a J.D. at Marquette University Law School in 1984.

After law school, Sykes clerked for Judge Terence T. Evans at the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin. From 1985 to 1992, she worked in private practice as a litigator for Whyte & Hirschboeck, a medium-sized law firm in Milwaukee. Sykes won election to a newly created trial judge seat on the Milwaukee County Circuit Court in 1992, serving in the misdemeanor, felony, and civil divisions. She left the trial court in 1999 for the Wisconsin Supreme Court, where she served until her appointment to the Seventh Circuit in 2004. After being appointed to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, she was elected to the court, defeating Louis B. Butler, Jr., who was later appointed to the Wisconsin Supreme Court by Governor Jim Doyle in 2004.