Rule 23 orders: the high court lets the sunshine in

Effective January 1, 2011, the Illinois Supreme Court is letting unpublished Rule 23 orders be posted on its website, making them much more readily available to the public and the legal community. The orders still may not be cited as precedent (except, as under the earlier version of the rule, "to support contentions of double jeopardy, res judicata, collateral estoppel or law of the case" -- see more in a LawPulse item from the June IBJ). That will disappoint some folks. But at least Rules 23 orders will be easy to access. Lawyers should enthusiastically cheer this rule change. But there's something else in the revised rule that may be just as important. Maybe more important, because it affects published opinions as well as unpublished orders. It provides that "the clerks of the appellate court shall transmit an electronic copy of each opinion or order filed in his or her district to the webmaster of the Illinois Supreme and Appellate Courts' Web site on the day of filing." If I'm reading it right, that could remove the sometimes lengthy lag between the filing of an opinion and its posting on the Web. If that's the case, it's reason to cheer even louder.