Cook County New Website Rollout

• Oct 2, 2018
• Illinois
• by Bob Rusch

On October 1, 2018, Dorothy Brown, Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County, introduced the clerk’s new website. The new site is designed to be more user-friendly with a clean look and easy to find buttons. While the old site was filled with banners and blocks to click on; the new site features a slick new menu at the top and three highly used shortcuts right on the home page.

Lisa Dowdell, Chief Deputy Clerk of Web Services, demonstrated some simple navigation through the various pages on the site. Lisa stated that the site’s design is mobile friendly, responsive, and task-oriented. She used the case search area as an example of how the new site can get you your case information more quickly than the old site. A new useful feature is the ability for attorneys to search for their own cases by their attorney code. There is a new streamlined area to access court forms making it easier to find the form you need. Additionally, there are the new social media buttons and a new Google translation area which can convert the entire page to a language listed in a drop-down menu right on the page. Overall, Ms. Dowdell performed many different shortcuts showing the new site’s ease of use.

Two eFiling managers demonstrated the new eFiling portal, pointing to the different ways that it can be accessed on the website. The managers showed the new page listing all eFiling instructions as well as the help available to the users. They fielded questions from the audience regarding some of the common problems users were having within the filing system. Although many of the original problems are corrected, the eFiling managers admitted that there are still many snafus within the system that still require workarounds.

Other items of note:

• Images of documents filed within a case are still not available for purchase through the website.
• Clerk Brown stated that the Illinois Supreme Court needs to rule on that issue for Cook County even though many other collar counties have been making their images available for the last few years.
• eFile and Serve is still not available.
• Issued summonses still need to be walked over to the Sheriff for service of process.
• The New Case Management System is scheduled to roll out in 2019.
• April 2019 for the criminal department.
• November 2019 for the civil department.

The audience was made up of paralegals, attorneys and what looked to be a few scattered individuals.

There was a second session at 1:30PM with the same presentation. Slides were not available.

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