The Illinois Supreme Court announced today a temporary order to harmonize the current procedure for eviction cases during the COVID-19 pandemic with new federal requirements recently adopted as part of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act), which was passed by Congress and signed into law on March 27, 2020.

The goal of this order is to ensure there are no inadvertent violations of the new federal law during the pandemic that would result in improper and unnecessary evictions at such a difficult time for residents of Illinois.

The Illinois Supreme Court today issued an order and operational guidelines to help courts statewide resume in-person operations and establish procedures for remote hearings. Since mid-March, the state’s courts have been operating under precautionary measures to minimize the spread of COVID-19 while continuing to conduct emergency and essential matters.

The Illinois Code of Civil Procedure allows a party to submit one or more special interrogatories to the jury. A special interrogatory is a question submitted to the jury by a party seeking a determination of a specific issue or question of fact and is submitted along with the general verdict forms. The purpose of a special interrogatory is to test the general verdict by ensuring the jury understood its instructions and each element of the cause of action necessary to enter the judgment indicated. In her May Illinois Bar Journal article, “What’s So Special About Special Interrogatories,” Amy Frantz discusses the use of special interrogatories in general, provides practical tips for attorneys on their use, and highlights recent extensive changes to the special interrogatory statute.

The legal profession is, out of necessity, practicality, or sometimes sheer stubbornness, notoriously backward looking. It shouldn’t come as a surprise, therefore, to realize that lawyers, judges, and the American legal system were largely unprepared for the coronavirus pandemic. We’re not unique in that, as most Americans seem taken aback by the virus. In many jurisdictions, court dockets have slowed or halted. But that hasn’t stopped the remainder of an attorney’s work from moving forward. Deadlines must be met, motions must be drafted, discovery must be served, and rulings must be issued. In his May Illinois Bar Journal article, “Law in the Time of COVID-19: Looking Backward While Moving Forward,” Brad Taylor asks how does a practitioner fulfill his or her myriad professional responsibilities while self-quarantining, practicing social distancing, and occasionally grappling with masses of frenzied, toilet-paper-obsessed shoppers? Not easily, Taylor says, and not without changing the way we perceive, at least in the short term, how legal professionals perform their roles.