By John A. Lupton, Supreme Court Historic Preservation Commission
In May 2022, the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) awarded the Illinois Supreme Court Historic Preservation Commission a grant for $136,000 to digitize early Illinois Supreme Court case files.
The project has digitized approximately 3,700 case files from 1819 to 1865 to make them available to researchers via a freely accessible and user-friendly website. The website will be publicly available within the next few months. Though the grant period concluded in August 2024, there is still some work to be completed.
The original case files are housed at the Illinois State Archives and are difficult to access. They are indexed on note cards solely by plaintiff, making the subject, defendant, and county searches impossible. Once the digitized case files become available on the Supreme Court Historic Preservation’s website, the original case files can be retired and preserved.
The final product website will feature advanced search capabilities similar to modern search engines. Users will be able to retrieve search results and click on specific cases for more details, such as a brief summary that provides an overview of the case. The researcher can continue a deeper dive into the case by examining PDF images of the documents in the case and the printed opinion, if available, from Illinois Reports. Additional search options will include county of origin and identifying which justice authored the opinion.
One remaining task is finalizing case summaries. Two staff members have already summarized the great majority of cases from the Illinois Reports. These summaries are typically three to five sentences, depending on the complexity of the case, and they provide researchers with a quick glance of what a case is about. However, the summaries need to be reviewed for clarity and accuracy. In addition, cases not reported in the Illinois Reports need to have summaries created.
To complete this work, the Illinois Supreme Court Historic Preservation Commission is seeking volunteers with a legal background. Volunteers will read and review the case summaries so there is a consistency among them and create summaries of the unreported cases. Volunteers preferably need the ability to read nineteenth-century handwriting. If you wish to volunteer, but do not have experience in handwriting, the Commission will provide training.
If you are interested in helping with the project, please contact John Lupton at john.lupton@illinoiscourthistory.org or at 217-670-0890 x1.