{"id":3714,"date":"2021-01-12T15:58:06","date_gmt":"2021-01-12T15:58:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chicagocouncil.org\/?p=3714"},"modified":"2021-01-12T15:58:10","modified_gmt":"2021-01-12T15:58:10","slug":"illinois-supreme-court-amendment-to-rule-23","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chicagocouncil.org\/staging\/1601\/illinois-supreme-court-amendment-to-rule-23\/","title":{"rendered":"Illinois Supreme Court Amendment to Rule 23 – A Necessary Change"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

On November 20, the Illinois Supreme Court amended Illinois Supreme Court Rule 23<\/a>. Rule 23 originally allowed reviewing courts in Illinois to issue decisions as unpublished orders if the ruling does not establish law (is not precedential). The amendment to Rule 23 will now allow these unpublished orders, issued on or after January 1, 2021, to be cited for persuasive purposes. Chicago Appleseed and the Chicago Council of Lawyers have supported and advocated on behalf of this rule change and applaud the Supreme Court\u2019s decision.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are valid reasons not to make every appellate decision precedential. In evolving areas of the law, an appellate court may wish to allow further development of an issue through multiple cases before announcing binding rules; the facts in a particular case may be so atypical as to counsel against creating binding precedent for all later cases; or the parties in the case may not have briefed the issue adequately. However, Rule 23 previously also limited the citation<\/em> of these non-precedential rulings, rendering them off limits for reference in future analogous cases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This rule was in large part a function of a time before digitized reporters\u2014a relic from when published appellate opinions took up physical space on physical shelves in physical volumes of print court reports. Though previously a pertinent factor, this no longer carries much weight: lawyers and courts currently rely primarily on online tools for their research; online tools do not have the same physical space constraints and currently already publish the full text of non-precedential decisions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The amendment to Rule 23 allows practitioners access to an important, substantial, and informative body of case law to cite in support of their arguments. <\/strong>This allows practitioners to use an unpublished decision\u2019s application of existing precedent to a particular set of facts in order to provide helpful guidance to parties and courts faced with similar fact patterns in subsequent cases. In other words, even though the decision itself is non-precedential, the cases are themselves useful for informing future legal reasoning. Furthermore, allowing for citation of these opinions emphasizes the legitimacy and importance of the court\u2019s rationale in these cases. Prohibiting citation suggests that the court\u2019s reasoning is inferior or suspect. The move to allow citation rightly emphasizes the legitimacy of decisions that bind parties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, allowing citation for non-precedential orders facilitates constructive feedback and the development of judicial discourse. Judicial precedent evolves positively over time as courts recognize the strengths and weaknesses of prior decisions and make appropriate adjustments. Precedential and non-precedential decisions alike (including concurrences and dissents) may illustrate these strengths and weaknesses, and likewise they may reflect patterns or points of distinction that can inform future decision-making. The federal appellate courts have allowed the citation to non-precedential decisions for more than a decade and have had positive experiences with that practice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By allowing for the citation of this range of decisions, the Illinois Supreme Court has provided a process for more thorough and informed arguments and briefing processes, and reflects the ways in which non-precedential opinions are part of the judicial conversation. We support this expansion of available persuasive precedent.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The amendment to Rule 23 will now allow these unpublished orders, issued on or after January 1, 2021, to be cited for persuasive purposes. The Chicago Council of Lawyers have supported and advocated on behalf of this rule change and applaud the Supreme Court\u2019s decision.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3717,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[78],"tags":[104],"class_list":["post-3714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-collaboration-for-justice","tag-illinois-supreme-court"],"yoast_head":"\nIllinois Supreme Court Amendment to Rule 23 - A Necessary Change - Chicago Council of Lawyers<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/chicagocouncil.org\/staging\/1601\/illinois-supreme-court-amendment-to-rule-23\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Illinois Supreme Court Amendment to Rule 23 - A Necessary Change - Chicago Council of Lawyers\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The amendment to Rule 23 will now allow these unpublished orders, issued on or after January 1, 2021, to be cited for persuasive purposes. 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