Cook County Court Issues Guidance on Return to Evictions
On July 27, 2020, Judge Kenneth Wright, Jr. entered a General Order dealing with the current caseload of Cook County eviction cases. As you know, the Governor’s extension of Executive Order 2020-30 is going to extend the moratorium on evictions to August 22, 2020. In the order, the court explains how the backlog of already filed and pending eviction cases will be dealt with.
All cases currently scheduled for any period between August 3, 2020 and August 31, 2020 will be rescheduled. You heard that right. No cases currently set for August will be heard by the court. Instead, the court will reschedule those August cases on the basis of 10 cases per day per judge on each of Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday beginning on September 14, 2020. 
After the cases are rescheduled, cases will be conducted by zoom or telephone conference where possible. So cases won’t be heard until mid-September at the soonest and at 40 per day, I’m not sure what kind of backlog that will create.
It would have been great if the court set up a special call for agreed orders and routine motions like a request for a special process server that could be conducted efficiently via electronic filing and without taxing the court system. As it stands, waiting to be one of the ten extra cases a day is likely to further stall and already snail paced system. If you have an eviction case to be filed on August 24, 2020, I don’t expect, based on this system that those cases will be heard any sooner than mid-September or later as well.