Rock Island County State’s Attorney Dora Villarreal’s legal career is loaded with historical firsts.
This QCBJ Woman of Influence is the first woman and first Latina to be elected Rock Island County state’s attorney.
She also is the first former criminal defense attorney to serve as the county’s top prosecutor. She was the first woman president of the Rock Island County Bar Association, and is a sounding board for women eager to pursue a career in law both informally and as a mentor for Lead(h)er and the Rock Island County and Illinois bar associations.
Julie Hayes is one of those whose lives she’s touched. “I reached out to Dora without personally knowing her to ask to meet me to discuss my interest to apply to law school,” she wrote in a letter supporting Ms. Villarreal’s selection. “Dora was happy to meet with me and offered guidance throughout the process.”
Ms. Villarreal’s own path to top prosecutor is a classic American immigrant story. It begins in Monterrey, Mexico, from which her parents emigrated. Ms. Villarreal was born in Kankakee, Illinois. The family, which includes two younger sisters, moved to the Quad Cities during her freshman year at Alleman High School, Rock Island. After graduation she did her undergraduate studies at Southern Illinois University – Carbondale. She later earned her juris doctorate from Hamline University, St. Paul, Minnesota.
While pregnant with their daughter, Ms. Villarreal and husband Nate Nieman moved back home to be closer to family. After passing the bar, she joined a leading Quad Cities law firm and also began doing defense work. “I just loved criminal law; loved, loved it,” she said.
That led her in 2009 to join the Rock Island County Public Defender’s office. In 2019 after then State’s Attorney John McGehee was appointed to the circuit court, the Rock Island County Board chose her to replace him. A year later, she was elected to the job after surviving a tough four-way primary and besting a strong GOP opponent. She ran unopposed in 2024.
“Nobody thought I would be chosen because I was a previous defense attorney and did not have experience as a prosecutor,” Ms. Villarreal said. But her criminal law experience has served her well from the other side of the table.
“I know how important it is when you actually file a charge against somebody,” she said. “We’re not doctors, but we hold people’s lives in our hands. Just charging someone with a crime; it will break up your family; you’ll lose your job; you could lose your home. You could lose everything just by being accused of a crime.”
Then there are families of victims and defendants impacted by the crime and the system.
“It’s so important to keep those things in mind to make sure that everyone is being fair and careful with everything,” she said. It’s also why her office doesn’t track conviction rates. “We’re not going to encourage people to file cases just to have a tally in their name.”
Her transition to the job was not without pushback. She ignored it and concentrated on working with and learning from some two dozen prosecutors and 15-16 staff members. Still, winning acceptance in the male-dominated legal court system took time.
“When you’re the man, you’re one of the buddies,” Ms. Villarreal explained. “If you’re a woman you have to do all of the work and then some just to earn a seat at the table. Not everyone trusts you in the way they would if you were a male.”
The way to handle that, she tells young women, is “just ignore them and keep going. You just have to focus on knowing that you are doing the right thing and you’re proud of yourself and ignore the noise, because there is always going to be noise.”
WORDS OF WISDOM
“I think that all of us, especially women, are incredibly powerful and smart and we bring lots to the table, not just intelligence, but we also have this kind of emotional intelligence and it is kind of a superpower I think to have both of those.”
BIO
Childhood hometown: Kankakee, Illinois.
Residence: Rock Island.
Family: Married to Nate Nieman. The couple has a daughter who is a senior in high school preparing for college.
Education: Graduated from Alleman High School, received a Bachelor’s degree in Science and Business Administration from Southern Illinois University – Carbondale and a juris doctorate from Hamline University, St. Paul, Minnesota.
