The Illinois appellate district map divides the state into five districts, and since January 1, 2022 the boundaries have looked different than they had for the previous 58 years. The First District is still Cook County alone. The Second District covers DeKalb, Kane, Kendall, Lake, and McHenry. The Third District covers Bureau, DuPage, Grundy, Iroquois, Kankakee, LaSalle, and Will. The Fourth District covers 40 counties across western and central Illinois. The Fifth District covers 47 counties across eastern and southern Illinois. The full county-by-county list is set out in Sections 10 through 30 of the Judicial Districts Act of 2021.1Illinois General Assembly. 705 ILCS 23 Judicial Districts Act of 2021
The Five Districts at a Glance
The Illinois Appellate Court sits between the circuit courts and the Illinois Supreme Court. Each district hears appeals from the circuit courts within its territory.
- First District (Chicago): Cook County only. It handles enough volume to run six internal divisions with 24 appellate judges.2State of Illinois Office of the Illinois Courts. Appellate Court
- Second District (Elgin): DeKalb, Kane, Kendall, Lake, and McHenry counties.
- Third District (Ottawa): Bureau, DuPage, Grundy, Iroquois, Kankakee, LaSalle, and Will counties.
- Fourth District (Springfield): 40 counties across western and central Illinois, including Winnebago, Peoria, Sangamon, McLean, Rock Island, and Adams.
- Fifth District (Mount Vernon): 47 counties across eastern and southern Illinois, including Champaign, Vermilion, Macon, Madison, St. Clair, and Jackson.
Each of the four downstate districts has six judges and a single division.2State of Illinois Office of the Illinois Courts. Appellate Court
What Changed on January 1, 2022
Before 2022, the appellate district boundaries had not moved since 1964.3State of Illinois Office of the Illinois Courts. Illinois Judicial Redistricting Over those six decades, suburban collar counties like DuPage and Will grew rapidly while many rural counties shrank. The Illinois Constitution requires the four non-Cook districts to have “substantially equal population” and to be “compact and composed of contiguous counties,”4Illinois General Assembly. Illinois Constitution Article VI – The Judiciary – Section: Judicial Districts and by 2021 the old map no longer met that standard. The General Assembly passed Public Act 102-0011, the Judicial Districts Act of 2021, and the new boundaries took effect on January 1, 2022.
The biggest shift hit the Second District. Under the old map it covered a broad stretch of northern Illinois; the redistricting cut it down to five counties.1Illinois General Assembly. 705 ILCS 23 Judicial Districts Act of 2021 DuPage and Will moved into the Third District. Winnebago, Peoria, Rock Island, and other western and northern counties shifted into the Fourth. The Fifth absorbed a large block of east-central and southern counties. Cook County, and the First District, was untouched.
If Your County Switched Districts, Which District Hears Your Case?
The Illinois Supreme Court set the transition rules in Order M.R. 30858, issued in December 2021.5Illinois Supreme Court. Illinois Supreme Court Order M.R. 30858 – 2021 Judicial Redistricting Three rules matter for anyone whose county moved.
Any notice of appeal or petition filed on or after January 1, 2022 goes to the new district assigned by the Act, no matter when the underlying judgment was entered. A judgment entered in December 2021 and appealed in January 2022 goes to whichever district now covers that county.
At the trial level, circuit courts remain bound by the appellate precedent of the district they sat in when the case was originally filed. A pending case in a county that moved from the Second District to the Fourth is still controlled by Second District precedent at the trial level.
For appeals that cross the boundary change, the Supreme Court adopted a “law of the case” rule. If one district already decided an earlier appeal in the case, and a later appeal now lands in a different district because of redistricting, the new district must treat the prior decision as the law of the case and cannot overrule it just because it conflicts with the new district’s own precedent.
Why the Map Matters When You File
When you file a notice of appeal with the circuit clerk, the clerk transmits it to the appellate district that covers the county where the case was heard. Under the current map, that means an appeal from DuPage County goes to the Third District in Ottawa rather than the Second District in Elgin, and an appeal from Winnebago County goes to the Fourth District in Springfield rather than the Second.
The district assignment is not just a matter of address. Different appellate districts sometimes reach different conclusions on the same legal question, and Illinois has no formal mechanism to resolve inter-district conflicts short of Supreme Court review. Attorneys in counties that switched districts now research the precedent of their new district. Moving DuPage and Will into the Third District also significantly increased that district’s workload, since those are among the most populous counties outside Cook, while each downstate district still has only six judges.
Finding the Official Map
The Illinois Courts website hosts both the pre-2022 map and the current map on its judicial redistricting page, along with a downloadable PDF showing every county’s district assignment.3State of Illinois Office of the Illinois Courts. Illinois Judicial Redistricting The statutory list of counties by district is at 705 ILCS 23, available through the Illinois General Assembly.1Illinois General Assembly. 705 ILCS 23 Judicial Districts Act of 2021 If your county is not one of the handful named above, cross-referencing the PDF map against the statute is the most reliable way to confirm your district.