E-filing now available for some at Illinois Supreme Court

The Illinois Supreme Court has announced a new e-file project.

The specific project approved by the Supreme Court allows the Illinois Attorney General, the State Appellate Defender's Office and the Office of the Illinois State's Attorneys Appellate Prosecutor to digitally file motions, briefs and related documents with the Clerk of the Court through a secure password system designed and operated by a third-party vendor.

"Electronic filing is an important step to modernize the way documents are filed with the Supreme Court, resulting in a simplified process for parties seeking relief from the Court," said Carolyn Taft Grosboll, clerk of the Supreme Court. "We are pleased to offer this technology and to provide the citizens of Illinois more efficient access to the court."

While restricted now to only those offices when they represent parties opposed to each other in the same case, the pilot project is planned to be the basis for a program to be extended to all parties and litigants filing in the Illinois Supreme Court, eventually resulting in the savings of tens of thousands of pages of paper documents.

Grosboll anticipates the electronic filing of documents associated with 35 to 40 new petitions of leave to appeal under the experimental project.

Virtually all documents associated with matters before the Supreme Court will be able to be filed electronically by these offices.

The project becomes effective immediately and will support the filing of legal documents in a text searchable format.

In announcing the project, the Court also released an electronic filing user manual, which explains the system and procedure.

A document will be considered timely submitted if e-filed at any time before midnight on or before the date the document is due.