Court Rules

Complete Rules Summary for Judge 18th Judicial Circuit Court, DuPage County, Illinois court-level sources

Commencing January 1, 2016, all civil case fillings must be made electronically.

Effective July 1, 2019, all civil case filings must be electronically filed using the statewide eFileIL system.

All civil cases except WF (Will Filing) are permissible electronic filing case types.

Notices of appeal and post-judgment enforcement documents may be e-filed and served per Supreme Court Rules.

Attorneys must register with an approved e-filing vendor and provide their DuPage attorney registration ID on all filings.

Pro se parties must register for e-filing using a valid credit card, debit card, or other valid electronic payment method.

Exhibits filed separately from associated documents due to size limits must include DuPage Exhibit Cover Sheet (Form 4393), or may be rejected.

Parties with legal basis to file under seal without prior order must e-file a motion for leave to seal, include standards explanation, and not attach the document to the motion.

Parties must redact SSNs, driver's license numbers, minor children's full names, full dates of birth, and financial account numbers in e-filed documents, using only last 4 digits, initials, or year as required.

E-filed pleadings must follow paper pleading formatting rules and include case title, case number, and nature of filing.

E-filed documents must include typed name, email, address, and phone number of the filer; attorneys must include DuPage County Attorney Number.

Documents must be converted to PDF directly from the authoring program, not scanned paper; paper-only documents may be scanned to PDF for e-filing.

E-filed documents must be unalterable PDF and printable with same contents/format as authoring program.

Bulk filings of multiple cases or combined PDFs are prohibited; different case numbers must be filed individually, same case documents may be in single transaction.

E-filed pleadings received before midnight on open court days deemed filed that day; filed on closed days deemed next business day.

Documents requiring personal service for jurisdiction may not be e-served, must be served conventionally.

Paper courtesy copies customarily required for court must be provided in e-file cases unless court orders otherwise.

Vendors collect required filing fees from subscribers via direct billing, unless fee is waived by court order or law.

Court may order electronic filings that failed due to transmission errors, vendor failures, clerk rejection, technical issues, or service list errors to be filed effective as of the first attempt date upon satisfactory proof.

Parties prejudiced by a court order accepting a subsequent filing effective as of the first attempt date are entitled to an extension of response or performance deadlines absent extraordinary circumstances.

E-filing vendor service fees belong solely to the vendor and are separate from statutory filing fees.

Document copies and certifications are available to requesting parties at reasonable cost, including applicable statutory or rule-based fees.

Refunds for e-file transactions ordered by the Court will deduct credit card and vendor fees; the Circuit Clerk refunds only the amount received from the e-filing vendor.

Approved EFSPs for eFileIL and e-filing vendors with executed agreements with the Circuit Clerk are appointed as the Clerk’s agent for e-filing, service, and document retrieval.

E-filing vendors must make electronically filed and served documents available to subscribers and court authorized users per the Clerk-vendor contract and Illinois Supreme Court Electronic Access Policy.

E-filing vendors may require fees or reasonable contractual requirements from subscribers, but are prohibited from charging government users or court-deemed indigent parties.

E-filing vendor subscriber agreements must be reviewed and approved by the Chief Judge or designee and Circuit Clerk; vendors must give 30 calendar days' notice before agreement changes take effect.

Summons with a required court date must be filed in a separate electronic transaction from the complaint, after the complaint is filed and assigned a case number and court location.

First pleadings, appearances, subsequent documents and orders must include attorney/party contact info and attorney ID number.

Attorneys must file an appearance with the Clerk before representing a party in court.