Illinois Case Law Search: Plain-English Illinois Case Law Research With Cited, Public-Domain Opinions

How do I search Illinois case law?

Start with the issue in a full sentence, not a keyword string. Type the actual question with the posture in it: "does an Illinois employer have to pay out accrued vacation at termination under the Wage Payment and Collection Act", not "820 ILCS 115 vacation". Plain-English search reads the whole question, including the statute and the setting, and returns the opinions that answer it.

Then place the case in the right district. The Appellate Court of Illinois has five districts, and the First District, which covers Cook County, decides far more cases than the rest and is split into six divisions. An Illinois circuit court must follow Appellate Court precedent, and where the districts have not spoken to a point differently, a decision from any district is authority a trial court should follow. When districts conflict, a circuit court generally follows the district it sits in.

Can you cite an unpublished Illinois Rule 23 order?

It depends on when the order was entered. Illinois Supreme Court Rule 23 lets the Appellate Court dispose of a case by a nonprecedential order rather than a published opinion, and those orders carry a U at the end of the public-domain number. For most of the rule's history, a Rule 23 order could not be cited as authority except in the narrow law-of-the-case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel situations, or to support a claim of double jeopardy or a similar bar.

That changed for newer orders. Under the amended Rule 23(e)(1), a nonprecedential order entered on or after January 1, 2021 may be cited for persuasive purposes, though it still is not binding precedent. Orders entered before that date remain subject to the older, stricter limits. Because the cutoff turns on the exact filing date, check when the order was entered before you rely on it, and confirm the current text of Rule 23, which the Supreme Court has amended more than once.

Where can I find Illinois case law online?

The official opinions are free. The Illinois Supreme Court and Appellate Court post every opinion and Rule 23 order on the state courts website the day it is filed, complete with the public-domain citation and paragraph numbers, and CourtListener and Google Scholar carry the same opinions with full-text search. What the free sources do not provide is a citator, a plain-language holding, or a quick read on whether a later district declined to follow the case, so they work well for pulling a case you already have a cite for and less well for finding the controlling one.

The paid tier splits by how much library you need. Westlaw and Lexis carry the headnote systems and the KeyCite and Shepard's citators, and for deep Illinois appellate work that treatment depth is hard to replace. For the everyday job, finding the controlling Appellate Court opinion on a discrete Illinois issue, reading the holding, and confirming it still stands, a self-serve research tool covers the work at a fraction of a full seat. We break down the tiers in the legal research software guide.