The Illinois Supreme Court today announced the expansion of the Remote Access Policy (RAP) for Illinois licensed attorneys and legal services providers in User Group 5. This will give Illinois attorneys expanded access to court information and documents in the 87 county courts currently integrated and certified through re:SearchIL. The expansion is effective March 1, 2021.

The full text of the RAP and the User Group Access Chart is available online.

“The Court is very pleased with this important step in providing remote access to court documents statewide,” Chief Justice Anne M. Burke said. “This has been a collaborative effort between the Administrative Office of the Illinois Courts, judges, circuit court clerks, reviewing court clerks, attorneys and our vendor, Tyler Technologies. We thank all of them for their hard work to make statewide remote access a reality.”

Under the expansion, Illinois licensed attorneys and legal service providers in User Group 5 are allowed access to the following:

• Access to all non-confidential documents in all case types via local Case Management Systems maintained by circuit clerks remotely over the internet.
• Access to the six (6) case types (arbitration, eminent domain, law, law magistrate, municipal corporation, and tax) in all integrated and certified courts via Re:SearchIL.
• Access to all non-confidential documents in all case types in all integrated and certified courts via Re:SearchIL. Upon successful testing, this expanded access will be provided no later than July 1, 2022.

“It is important that attorneys and eventually the public have remote access to court records throughout the state. The Supreme Court and all those who worked on this project should be commended,” said Hon. David A. Hylla, a former judge on the Third Circuit of Illinois from 2006 to 2019 and Chair of the e-Business Policy Advisory Board. “This further expansion of remote access is a major step improving transparency and public confidence in our courts.”

There is a fee of $.10 per page with a maximum of $3 per document accessed for User Group 5. These fees are payable to the court which provides the document being accessed.

Three courts have completed integration but are not certified at this time (DuPage, Winnebago and Lee) and are not included in the authorization to expand on March 1. Courts which have not completed integration programming are also excluded from the authorization for expanded access. The list of non-integrated courts is available online. All trial and reviewing courts are to become integrated and certified with re:SearchlL no later than January 1, 2022.