Court Services Division | State of Illinois Office of the Illinois Courts
(217) 524-3072 (Springfield Office)
Nate Jensen, Division Director
The Court Services Division is composed of the Special Programs Unit, the Recordkeeping and Technology Unit and those efforts directly under the Director, Court Services. The Division acts as a court knowledge and research arm, regularly interfacing with judges, circuit clerks and trial court administrators.
The Division is responsible for staffing a variety of Supreme Court committees or boards, including the Conference of Chief Circuit Judges E-Business Policy Board, Judicial Performance Evaluation Committee, The Supreme Court Commission on Elder Law, the Committee on Illinois Evidence, Judicial Mentor Committee, as well as various Judicial Conference task forces. The Division processes court requests for a judicial assignment outside the original court jurisdiction, as well as requests for the reimbursement of defense costs related to the Sexually Violent Person’s Commitment Act.
The Special Programs Unit [SPU] host regular convenings of the Illinois Judicial College’s Trial Court Administrator Education [TCAE] Committee, charged with development, coordination, and presentation of several professional development webinars for all Trial Court Administrators [TCAs] and other justice stakeholders statewide. The TCAE Committee is responsible for hosting its in-person, two-and-a-half-day Court Administration Leadership [CAL] Academy. SPU is responsible for overseeing the Mandatory Arbitration Program throughout the state, regularly meeting with Mandatory Arbitration Administrators. SPU also facilitates regular statewide Trial Court Administrator Meetings for the improvement of information flow and sharing of best practices. In addition to reviewing new mediation program submissions for Supreme Court approval, staff is also responsible for gathering and analyzing all statewide mediation data for evictions, civil, custody & visitation, online dispute resolution programs, mortgage foreclosure, child protection, and others.
SPU staff also oversees Emergency Preparedness-Continuity of Operations (EP-COOP) planning in the judicial branch, regularly collecting vital information for these purposes and distributing concrete plans to circuits. Rule 215(d) impartial medical examiners are also administered through this unit of Court Services.
The Recordkeeping & Technology Unit (RTU) provides an array of guidance and technical support services to courts and circuit clerks. RTU staff, as members of the Illinois Association of Court Clerk’s (IACC) Oversight Board, work with the IACC to develop educational programs for circuit clerks and their staff, as well as coordinate the New Circuit Clerk Mentor Program. RTU further serves as staff and advisors to the Illinois Judicial College Standing Committee on Circuit Court Clerk Education (CCCE), its four workgroups as well as the Oversight Board for Continuing Education.
The Manual on Fines and Fees, maintained by the RTU, includes more than 300 statutory citations and Supreme Court Rule references regarding the collection and distribution of fines, fees, penalties, restitution, assessments, surcharges, and costs which may be applied to cases in Illinois. Annually, the RTU monitors the filing of the circuit clerks’ financial audits. The Unit compiles and distributes the Applicable Legal Requirements to auditors for their compliance testing and disseminated updated auditing guidelines to county boards and circuit clerks; and provides certified merged jury lists as requested to all 102 counties. RTU staff also serve as liaison to the Conference of Chief Circuit Judges Ad Hoc Committee on Article V Rules, which provides recommendations of updates to the Article V Rules, Uniform Citation Forms, and Electronic Citation Forms.
The RTU provides guidance to courts for electronic filing and the Supreme Court’s statewide system called re:SearchIL. RTU staff assist with providing guidance to courts regarding the Remote Access Policy (RAP) which governs document access over the Internet. In addition to serving as staff support to the Supreme Court eBusiness Policy Advisory Board, the RTU further continues to assist local circuit courts with implementation, facilitates information sharing, and provides detailed and subject matter expertise for all other electronic business programs and data collection.
RTU also provide trainings, assistance, and oversight regarding the Supreme Court’s General Administrative Order on Recordkeeping in the Circuit Courts and instructions in the Manual on Recordkeeping (RKM). The RTU manages and update the Offense Code Table (OFT), which contains the coded listing of all criminal offenses reportable to four recipient state agencies through the Automated Disposition Reporting (ADR) Program. RTU staff collects, compiles, and publishes quarterly and annual statistical information for the Supreme, Appellate, and Circuit Courts, and other divisions of the Supreme Court and Administrative Office.