From press release

In keeping with the Illinois Supreme Court’s desire to bring greater public access and understanding to the courts, audio recordings of all oral arguments in the Illinois Appellate Court will soon be available on the Court’s Web site.

Under the direction of the Administrative Office of the Illinois Courts and its division of Judicial Management Information Services (JMIS), the appellate courtrooms in all five judicial districts have been equipped with digital audio recording systems that will preserve audio quality long term for archival purposes. The systems also are compatible with standard computer software readily available on most personal computer systems, and will allow the legal community and the general public to listen to and download audio recordings of all appellate arguments and workers’ compensation hearings.

The new access is available beginning Monday, Nov. 2 and continues a process by the Supreme Court and the Administrative Office to make court information more accessible to a wider public audience.

Use of technology for this purpose offers an additional means by which the Supreme Court and the Administrative Office are able to broaden access to information about the Illinois courts,

said Cynthia Y. Cobbs, director of the Administrative Office.
There are approximately 100,000 visitors to the Court’s Web site monthly. The Appellate Court opinion section is consistently one of the most popular sections on the site. The availability of audio recordings of Appellate Court arguments to practitioners, law schools and the general public will provide information concerning specific cases and, as an added benefit, will increase the public’s knowledge about how our intermediate reviewing courts work.

The Court and the Administrative Office are grateful to the Appellate Court and to each presiding appellate court justice for their assistance and cooperation in seeing this project through.

The Supreme Court has been posting both video and audio recordings of its oral arguments on its Web site since January 2008. It also makes available court-related information by way Twitter and by 22 list serves which can be subscribed to through an individual’s e-mail account. All of the Supreme Court and Appellate Court opinions, as well as orders and announcements, also are available on the Court’s Web site (www.state.il.us/court). All the programs have been developed and implemented through the JMIS division.

Implementation of the Appellate audio-recording project continues to promote the Supreme Court’s use of technology to increase access to court information for educational and informational purposes,

said Skip Robertson, assistant director of the JMIS division.
With the assistance of Appellate Court personnel, JMIS staff is able to prepare and post audio recordings, linking a filed opinion to its recorded oral argument.

The appellate courtrooms of the five judicial districts are located in Chicago, Elgin, Ottawa, Springfield and Mount Vernon.

From the November 11-17, 2009 issue