McDade was a staff attorney in the United States Department of Justice Antitrust Division in Chicago from 1963 to 1965.[3] He was an executive trainee at the First Federal Savings and Loan Association of Peoria, Illinois in 1965. He was executive director of the Greater Peoria Legal Aid Society from 1965 to 1968. He was in private practice in Peoria from 1968 to 1982:[1] first as a partner in Hafele & McDade, P.C., until 1977, then in solo practice until his election as a state judge in 1982.[2]
Judicial service
State judicial service
He was an associate circuit judge of the Tenth Judicial Circuit of Illinois from 1982 to 1988. In the 1988 election, McDade ran to fill the vacancy left by Stephen J. Covey. McDade defeated Democratic candidate Frank E. Hoffman with 79,887 votes to Hoffman's 54,508 votes, and winning four of the five counties in the Tenth Judicial Circuit.[4] He then served as a circuit judge of the Tenth Judicial Circuit of Illinois from 1988 to 1991.[1] After McDade's confirmation to the federal bench, the Illinois Supreme Court appointed retired Judge James M. Bumgarner of Hennepin as circuit judge effective March 19, 1992, to December 7, 1992.[5]
^McDade, Joe Billy. "2019 Local Legends" (Interview). Interviewed by Peoria Magazine. Peoria Magazine. Archived from the original on December 8, 2022. Retrieved August 6, 2024.
