Illinois Supreme Court Amends Rejection Standards for Circuit and Reviewing Courts
The Illinois Supreme Court announced today the implementation of standardized rejection protocols for electronically submitted filings (e-filings) in both circuit courts and reviewing courts through an amendment to Supreme Court Rule 9. Rule 9, which is titled Electronic Filing of Documents, is intended to ensure statewide uniformity; the amendment adopting the Rejection Standards will provide filers with guidance on correcting their filings for resubmission.
The Rejection Standards and amendment to Rule 9 are effective Sept. 1, 2024.
Rejection Standards for both the reviewing and circuit courts were proposed by the Supreme Court’s e-Business Policy Advisory Board. Reviewing and Circuit Court Clerks were provided a draft list of the standards by the Policy Board which requested feedback prior to the recommendation being submitted to the Supreme Court.
Created in November 2014, the Policy Board is charged with providing recommendations, advice, and guidance to the Supreme Court and Administrative Office of Illinois Courts regarding implementation of e-Business applications and data exchanges in the Illinois courts. Fourth District Appellate Justice Eugene G. Doherty serves as chair of the Policy Board and Supreme Court Clerk Cynthia Grant serves as vice-chair.
View the Amended Rule 9 and the Illinois Supreme Court Rules on the Illinois Courts website.
Member Comments (5)
Hello, colleagues:
It is my honor to serve on the e-Business Advisory Board. Any thoughts on this? As a practitioner, the hope is to standardize and limit rejection reasons.
The standardization and limitation are completely undercut by including the nonspecific "Rejection by clerk" reason unless its use is restricted, and those restrictions actually have teeth.
Thanks for your comment, Joseph. That "catch-all" was the subject of much debate and was deemed necessary to move the concept forward. The hope is that we will be able to analyze rejection statistics after the change to determine if the catch-all is being overused or abused, depending on your perspective...
I believe Rule 9 should be amended to track FRCP 5d which requires clerks to file documents submitted for filing even if they have technical defects. In notable cases, Illinois circuit clerks have rejected documents four days after they were submitted and deadlines expired in the interim with terrible consequences. There is no rule requiring the clerks to reject right away and absent that, litigants are left hanging not knowing if the document will be file stamped and accepted. That is unreasonable. This amendment simply gives clerks more reasons to reject documents and cause havoc.
Hi, Bruce! Great to hear from you. I share your perspective as a practitioner with wanting to limit the reasons for clerk rejections. The hope is that this amendment limits and brings more uniformity to rejection reasons. While not perfect, I hope it's an improvement and will yield better data for rejection statistics moving forward. From a practitioner's standpoint, developing the technological infrastructure and rule changes to allow rejected filings to relate back remains a top priority.
I'm happy to discuss your thoughts anytime, so feel free to call. 815.625.8200