Ex-GOP nominee for AG Tom DeVore temporarily loses law license over
inappropriate client relationship
[September 24, 2025]
By Hannah Meisel
The Illinois Supreme Court has ordered former Illinois attorney general
Republican nominee Tom DeVore’s law license suspended for 60 days,
following a yearslong public feud involving his client-turned-girlfriend
and the state’s attorney discipline board.
The court’s order affirms a recommendation this spring by the Illinois
Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission, which found “clear
and convincing evidence” that DeVore’s actions related to Riley Craig
had broken several Illinois Supreme Court ethics rules.
Craig, a Springfield salon owner, was one of the hundreds of clients
DeVore represented in dozens of lawsuits after gaining notoriety for
representing then-state Rep. Darren Bailey in an April 2020 lawsuit
challenging Gov. JB Pritzker’s COVID-19 stay-at-home orders. Two years
later, DeVore joined Bailey on an unsuccessful statewide GOP ticket to
unseat Pritzker and Attorney General Kwame Raoul.
DeVore, a lawyer from rural Greenville in the Metro East, began a
romantic relationship with Craig after filing a pandemic-related lawsuit
on her behalf in May 2020, according to ARDC documents. Though Craig’s
litigation against the Pritzker administration was unsuccessful, their
relationship continued for nearly three years.
In mounting a defense to the ARDC’s case, DeVore claimed that his work
as Riley’s attorney in her effort to get her salon reopened had ended by
the time their romantic involvement began in late May or June 2020. The
ARDC disputed DeVore’s timeline, pointing to continued attorney behavior
in that case.
But beyond that, DeVore went on to represent Riley in three other legal
matters — including her divorce — that summer. That “demonstrated an
unbroken continuation of his attorney-client relationship” with Craig,
the ARDC ruled.
The disciplinary panel began looking into DeVore’s behavior in 2021, and
during that initial investigation, Craig said she was not a client when
their sexual relationship began. She repeated that claim on social media
while DeVore was running for attorney general in 2022.
But in May 2023, a few months after Craig and DeVore broke up, Craig
“threatened to change her story” to the disciplinary panel so that
DeVore would “lose his law license,” according to the ARDC report.
The disciplinary panel also pointed out that “even consensual sexual
activity between an attorney and a client constitutes an impermissible
conflict of interest because the attorney’s emotional involvement with
the client creates a significant risk that the attorney’s independent
professional judgment will be impaired.”
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Former Republican Illinois attorney general candidate Thomas DeVore
is pictured at the Illinois State Fair in 2022. (Capitol News
Illinois photo by Jerry Nowicki)
DeVore also got involved in Craig’s business venture to launch a hair
product business, for which the pair took out $600,000 in loans in 2021.
But in doing so, the ARDC found DeVore failed to provide “required
safeguards” for Craig.
The business was failing in the spring of 2023 when Craig made her
threat to expose DeVore, according to ARDC documents. Following that May
2023 meeting, Craig filed her own complaint with the ARDC and filed for
personal bankruptcy to avoid responsibility for the company’s debt.
But the day after Craig filed for bankruptcy, DeVore sent an email to
both Craig and a vendor that the company owed $30,000, which alerted the
vendor to Craig’s filing — and the fact the vendor could still come
after the company for its debt. The email also called Craig a “petulant
child” and apologized for her “nasty character,” according to the ARDC
report.
The disciplinary panel also found the email violated state ethics rules
for attorneys.
DeVore declined to comment on the court’s order to Capitol News
Illinois. His law license will be suspended for 60 days beginning Oct.
10.
But the attorney has been staying busy. Earlier this year, he formed a
political action committee dubbed “Tom DeVore’s RINO Removal,” referring
to the acronym for “Republicans in Name Only.” DeVore has been
recruiting candidates to face GOP state legislators in primary races,
including House Minority Leader Tony McCombie, R-Savana.
He’s also filed several lawsuits against fellow Republicans in the last
year, including one accusing McCombie of censoring him by deleting his
comments and barring him from posting on her Facebook page. On Monday, a
federal judge granted McCombie’s motion to dismiss the suit.
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by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.
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