What kinds of civil cases does the supreme court decide?

This graph, the first in a series that will appear in the Journal, is drawn from a database assembled by appellate lawyers at Sedgwick LLP. The database consists of all the opinions handed down by the Illinois Supreme Court in civil cases since 2000. The opinions were reviewed and classified according to 48 different data points, including every aspect of the lower court litigation, supreme court voting, and the opinions themselves - collectively more than 30,000 data points encompassing every aspect of the court's civil docket.

While tort, civil procedure, and constitutional law cases have made up a significant portion of the court's docket throughout the 15-year period, surprisingly, government/administrative and workers' comp cases have fallen and domestic relations cases have sharply increased since 2010. For more observations based on the data, visit Sedgwick's blog Illinois Supreme Court Review at http://www.illinoissupremecourtreview.com.

Kirk C. Jenkins of Chicago chairs Sedgewick's Appellate Task Force.

kirk.jenkins@sedgwicklaw.com