The judges and staff of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin are saddened at the passing of Magistrate Judge Patricia J. Gorence. Judge Gorence, 82, passed away on August 4, 2025, surrounded by her loved ones.

Judge Gorence was born in Sheboygan, Wisconsin to parents who had immigrated from Yugoslavia. She attended Marquette University, earning a degree in journalism that she put to use as a reporter for the Waukesha Freeman. She spent a summer in Montgomery, Alabama at the height of the civil rights movement, reporting for the Southern Courier and seeing, firsthand, the inequalities that gave rise to that movement. She later earned a master’s in political science from UW Madison and her juris doctor from Marquette University Law School.

She clerked for Judge Robert Warren in the Eastern District of Wisconsin. She went on to become an assistant United States Attorney in the district (rising to the level of first assistant), then was appointed to the role of Deputy Attorney General for the state of Wisconsin. She practiced law with the Milwaukee law firm of Gimble, Reilly, Guerin and Brown, then was appointed to be a magistrate judge in the Eastern District of Wisconsin—the first woman ever to hold that position in this district.

She served as a judge for twenty-six years, treating lawyers and parties with respect and exercising her keen intelligence with patience and kindness.

Judge Gorence was instrumental in founding the court’s “START” reentry program (Successful Transition and Reentry Together, a program that assists persons transitioning from incarceration into the community), supervised law clerks working on civil rights cases filed by plaintiffs incarcerated in the state prison system and served as a mentor to new colleagues and law clerks.

Having been a trailblazer, she paid her experience forward by being an early and active member of the Association for Women Lawyers and helping other women lawyers and judges to follow in her footsteps. She was active in the Milwaukee Bar Association and the Eastern District of Wisconsin Bar Association.

She is, and will be, deeply missed by her fellow “court family” members. Our thoughts and prayers are with her family.
 

https://www.feerickfuneralhome.com/obituary/patricia-gorence