Family and Civil Law

The cases in this area do not usually begin with a police officer. They begin with a decision to separate, an accident, a death in the family, or a letter from a landlord. What they have in common is that a court is deciding how ordinary life goes on afterwards: who lives where, who the children see, who pays for what. This page is general information, not advice about your case.

Divorce and parenting

Illinois does not ask a court to decide whose fault it was that a marriage ended. The only ground for divorce is irreconcilable differences, and a spouse who wants a divorce can obtain one. What actually takes time is everything else: how property and debt are divided, whether one spouse supports the other for a period, and how two parents will share responsibility for their children.

Illinois also stopped using the word custody. Courts now allocate parental responsibilities — decisions about school, health care, religion and activities — and set out parenting time in a written plan. The standard the judge applies is the best interests of the child, and it is applied to a particular child in a particular family, not to a formula.

Wills and estates

A will says who receives what and, where there are young children, who is asked to raise them. Illinois has requirements about how a will is signed and witnessed, and a document that ignores them may not be honored. Two other documents usually matter as much: a power of attorney for property and a power of attorney for health care, which say who may act for you if you cannot act for yourself. When someone dies, the estate may have to go through probate, and whether it does depends on what they owned and how it was held.

Injury claims

Where someone else's carelessness caused an injury, the claim is against them or their insurer. These cases are built out of records — medical files, photographs, repair estimates, witness accounts — and they are governed by deadlines. The general deadline for a personal injury claim in Illinois is measured in years, but there are shorter ones, in particular for claims against a city, a transit authority or another public body. A claim that misses its deadline usually ends there, however strong it was.

Landlords and tenants

Renting in Chicago is governed by a city ordinance as well as by state law, and suburban Cook County has an ordinance of its own. Between them they set rules about security deposits, notices, repairs and eviction. An eviction in Illinois is a court case: a landlord may not change the locks, remove belongings, or cut off heat or water to force a tenant out.

Matters in this area

• Divorce, property division and maintenance
• Parental responsibilities, parenting time and relocation
• Wills, powers of attorney and probate
• Personal injury claims
• Landlord and tenant disputes, including eviction

The next step

Bring the documents that already exist — a marriage certificate, a parenting plan, a deed, a lease, a will, a letter from an insurer, a court summons — and tell us the dates on them. In this area the calendar is often the most important fact in the file.