Erin K. Conner – Founder & Lead Trial Attorney — The Conner Law Firm LLC

Former Chief of the Criminal Bureau, St. Clair County State’s Attorney’s Office

When the State of Illinois files charges against you, the only thing standing between you and a conviction is the lawyer at the defense table. Erin K. Conner has spent more than fifteen years at that table — first as the prosecutor deciding which cases to charge, then as the defense attorney dismantling the cases other prosecutors built. She knows how the State thinks because she used to be the State. That perspective changes everything about how a case is fought.

A prosecutor who learned the system from the inside

Erin spent eight years at the St. Clair County State’s Attorney’s Office, rising from line Assistant State’s Attorney to Supervisor of the Violent Crimes Unit and ultimately to Chief of the Criminal Bureau. She charged hundreds of cases, tried dozens of them to verdict, and oversaw the prosecutions of first-degree murders, armed robberies, criminal sexual assaults, and aggravated DUIs. She read the police reports before they ever made it to a defense lawyer’s desk. She negotiated with the same judges, detectives, and defense bar she now appears across from every week.

That background is not a marketing line. It is the reason her motions land. When Erin files a motion to suppress, the prosecutor across the aisle knows it has been drafted by someone who has personally argued the other side of that motion a hundred times. When she tells a client a plea offer is the best the State will do — or, more often, that the State is bluffing — that assessment is grounded in the years she spent setting those offers herself.

Fifteen-plus years of trial work, on both sides of the aisle

Before opening The Conner Law Firm, Erin spent three years as criminal defense counsel at Kuehn, Beasley & Young, P.C., one of the most respected defense firms in southern Illinois. Across her career she has handled more than fifty trials and countless evidentiary and pretrial hearings — DUIs, domestic battery cases, drug felonies, sex offenses, weapons charges, juvenile transfer hearings, post-conviction petitions, and appeals. She represents clients in St. Clair, Monroe, Randolph, Perry, Washington, Madison, and Bond Counties, with regular appearances in the surrounding circuits as well.

You hire Erin. You get Erin.

At larger firms, the lawyer who pitches you is rarely the lawyer who tries your case. That does not happen here. When you retain The Conner Law Firm, Erin personally handles your matter from the first phone call through the final order. She does not farm cases out to associates, paralegals, or contract attorneys. Every motion, every hearing, every plea negotiation, every cross-examination — Erin’s name is on it because Erin did it.

Education and trial training

Erin earned her JD from Saint Louis University School of Law in 2011, with a concentration in Criminal Litigation and a certificate in International and Comparative Law. She received the Academic Excellence Award in Criminal Law and placed nationally on the Jessup Moot Court team as both an 8th- and 3rd-place oralist in back-to-back years.

Long before law school, she was already learning to argue in front of a hostile audience. As a member of McKendree University’s Pi Kappa Delta speech and debate team, she became a four-time national champion in impromptu speaking, international public debate, and all-around competition, and reached the national finals seven times. She graduated McKendree summa cum laude in 2008 with degrees in Biology and Political Science. The science background is part of why she is comfortable cross-examining the State’s expert witnesses — toxicologists, forensic analysts, and accident reconstructionists do not get a free pass in her courtroom.

Recognition

• National Trial Lawyers — Top 100 Criminal Defense (2023)
• National Academy of Criminal Defense Attorneys — Top 10 Under 40 (2023)
• Marquis Who’s Who — Expertise in Legal Services (2026)
• Treasurer, St. Clair County Bar Association
• Treasurer, East St. Louis Bar Association
• Member, Illinois State Bar Association and the Illinois Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers

Erin has also served as an Adjunct Professor at McKendree University (American Politics and Intro to Criminal Justice) and as an instructor with the Southern Illinois Law Enforcement Commission, where she trained the same officers whose reports she now scrutinizes.

From Belleville, for Belleville

Erin is a lifelong resident of the metro-east. She knows the judges in St. Clair County by reputation and by experience in their courtrooms. She knows which prosecutors will move on a fair offer and which ones need to be pushed to trial. She knows which diversionary programs are genuinely available and which exist mostly on paper. That local knowledge does not show up on a billboard, but it shows up in the disposition of every case she handles.

Outside the office, Erin is married to Chris, who helps run the firm’s operations. She is a cat mom to Sophia and Alexei, an avid traveler, an unapologetic karaoke enthusiast, and a St. Louis Blues fan.

Talk to Erin directly

If you or someone you love has been charged with a crime in southern Illinois — or if you believe charges may be coming — the next few decisions you make will matter for years. Call 618-277-2421 or email erin@theconnerlawfirm.com to schedule a confidential consultation. You will speak with Erin. Not an intake screener. Not an associate. Erin.