Wonderful.

We'll begin with introductions.

What we're gonna do similar to our last working group meeting, we will go around, just uh give a brief introduction of your name, your title, and the organization or department that you are from, and we will do a popcorn style.

So I will uh let's kick it off with Nancy and then we'll um we'll um move it around to uh after that.

Hey folks, good afternoon, Nancy Negrett, the policy director for Commissioner Naya.

I'll popcorn it to Amy.

Hi, I'm Amy Malinaski.

I'm uh the director of outreach uh for constituent services for Commissioner Donna Miller.

Um I'm also recording this meeting just so everybody knows, and I'll popcorn it to Brian.

Good afternoon, everybody.

Brian CC, Director of Policy for Cook County Commissioner Donna Miller.

Um I will send it to Cynthia Forrest.

Good afternoon, everyone.

I am Cynthia Flores.

I'm a sergeant with the Chicago Police Department and the Victim Services Domestic Violence Program and I will pop it over to Carmen Dracon Carmen, are you here?

Okay, I'll popcorn it to Madeline then.

Thanks, Amy.

Hi everyone, I'm Madeline Baer.

I'm the deputy director for policy and systems advocacy at the network advocating against domestic violence.

I will popcorn it to Christina.

Good morning, everyone.

Christina Copa, Director of Policy at the Cook County Justice Advisory Council, and I will hand it to my colleague Kayla.

Hi everyone, Kayla Posley, policy analyst at the Cook County Justice Advisory Council.

I'll pass it to Hannah.

Hi.

Oh, sorry, two Hitler's baby.

Uh hi, Hannah Fearley, uh Chief of Staff to Commissioner Gator.

I'll pass it to the other Hannah.

Hi everyone, Hannah Shalowenski, Senior Division Attorney for the Domestic Relations Division in Cook County, um, circuit court.

I'll pass it to you, Kate Nolan.

Hi, I'm Kate Nolan.

I'm the director of legal research for the Office of the Chief Judge.

And I will pass it to Janet.

Good afternoon, everyone.

Janet Hunter, Clerk of the Circuit Court County representative Mariana Sparapoulos.

I am the associate clerk for the Family Bureau.

Oh, and I'll who's left.

I'll try Carmen again.

Why don't we do uh my our boss Commissioner Miller?

Thanks everybody.

It's been a minute.

So I just want to thank Commissioner Anaya for leading this and Nancy and Amy and Katie, all you guys, and I love this dream team of women.

Sorry, Brian, but it's great to see everybody.

And then I think that just leaves Katie Left, I believe.

I believe the other Cynthia, if I'm not mistaken.

Oh, I'm the other Cynthia, yes.

Cynthia Shilski, and I'm with the Cook County League of Women Voters, and I'm here as an observer.

Katie, you're muted, I think.

Sorry.

Uh Katie Don here with Chicago 77.

Thank you.

And then Sarah Smith, I think is the last uh person on the call.

Hi, yeah, I'm Sarah Smith with the Cook County Sheriff's Office.

I think that's everybody.

Yes, Carmen, did you wanna we weren't able to hear you before?

Oh no, I was in a uh having some technical difficulties.

Sorry, Commissioner.

Thank you.

Carmen Navarro Dracone, I'm here with uh Katie Dunn in Chicago 77.

Wonderful.

Thank you, everybody.

Uh and again, thanks for joining us today.

Um we're gonna um I'm gonna ask Amy if she can give us a rundown for today's agenda and then we'll um begin shortly after.

For sure.

Uh yeah, so I think today we're gonna hear from Hannah and Kate uh from the OCJ.

I believe that they have a presentation that they were gonna um provide for us, and then after that, we can kind of go over if anyone has any questions.

Uh we sent out an email about data requests.

So if there's any clarification and we can kind of just figure out uh, you know, when people will present what and go over those schedules.

Um we've talked a little bit.

I know Madeline and I, we've been emailing this morning about the next executive meeting, uh, so we can talk about that as well.

Um, but if that is all, if no one has any questions right away.

Hannah and Kate, are you uh ready or did you want to go over anything first?

No, we're ready.

Um, Amy, can I put my slides up?

Can I share them with the group?

Um are you able to share the screen?

Um let's see.

Yes.

Does everyone see what I'm sharing?

Yes.

Okay.

Um, okay, so this is a presentation that um, sorry, let me get in presentation mode.

Um hang on.

Well, okay.

Um, so this is a presentation that um uh I think some of the commissioners, so Commissioner Miller, Commissioner Naya, this may look familiar to you, and apologies for any um content that may be repeated, but we wanted to just do a quick overview to make sure that we're all kind of on the same page as it relates to um the differences between domestic relations and domestic violence, especially for OPs.

So um just this is a quick primer that you know um the difference, main difference between those two divisions is the difference between civil law and criminal law.

And um for our purposes, um, it's mainly the parties that are at play there.

So um, you know, the parties in civil law are private individuals on the criminal side, it's the state.

Um, so for any um OPs that occur in domestic relations division um or cases there, they would be between private parties, the state's not involved, and so there's different obligations and different rights.

And so just to have an idea that you know, essentially it's the state on one side for criminal law and then for civil law, it's individual parties.

And so um, you know, resources may be different in the different divisions, and we also have different um standards and uh just a different set of um legal um processes that we would follow.

Um moving along, and I don't I will send these um slides out to Amy so she can distribute to the group groups.

Thank you.

Feel free to ask questions at the end, but also don't feel free to have to absorb all this information.

Um again, we just want to let you know the different types of cases that can be heard in domestic relations.

So I think most people are familiar with divorce or parenting time custody, um, those types of issues.

Uh, you do not necessarily uh have representation from attorneys.

So attorneys can be involved, but or civil legal service providers, but we also have a lot of litigants that just act um on their own and represent themselves.

Um the DV division um does hear criminal cases, they also hear civil no contact orders, civil OPs, stocking no contact orders.

There are a lot more um entities involved on the DV side.

You'll have the state's attorney, you'll have the public defender when it's criminal actions.

You also have private attorneys, um, civil legal service providers, and then you also have those litigants that are just represented, representing themselves.

Um we just do just want to make sure that um it's understood that the domestic relations division hears civil orders of protection, but only in cases that are currently have a pending domestic relations case.

So they'll hear um those civil orders of protection, but they're connected to a domestic relations case.

They don't they're not standalone.

Um training.

So um it is separate training for the domestic relations judges and the domestic violence judges.

So since 2024, um the domestic relations judges also receive domestic violence training.

Um and that is you know, a change that's come about from some recommendations from our committees and also recommendations from advocates and others.

Um they do um comply with um all the Supreme Court rules in terms of training in order to um hear the subject matters that they do.

And they also go to their annual um education requirements to do their education conference requirements that keep up to date on these subjects, including um domestic violence, but also domestic relations specific um topics.

So there's a lot of education that the judges receive, both when they're assigned to the division, but then also annually on an ongoing basis in order to keep up their um educational requirements.

Uh okay, so I know there's been questions about um how orders of protections in domestic relations are served.

So sometimes it happens in open court.

If it happens in open court, then the OP is just served there.

There doesn't need to be separate service of the respondent.

If the respondent's not there in court, then the sheriff's office is tasked with serving the respondent.

And that's similar to how it operates in domestic violence when it's an ex-party hearing.

It's an emergency OP.

So sometimes the OPs will be served in open court during the pendency of a divorce case, but sometimes they'll be separate and civil be service by the sheriff's office.

This question has also come up.

So this this slide deals with um, you know, judges having information to domestic relations judges having information about OPs that may be pending.

And so there's some pretty strict limits about what judges can do to investigate cases before them.

And it's really um not appropriate and and considered outside of their ethical guidelines for judges to do research on the parties before them.

So they're only supposed to be considering what is presented in court to them.

Um they can ask questions, you know, they can ask questions of the litigants and get answers, but it's supposed to be in open court so that everyone can hear.

And so they're not supposed to do research on their own to determine um what cases the person might have been involved in or uh has been involved in in the past, and they're supposed to limit their information to what is presented in court so that all parties have a chance to uh present that information, hear what's being um said about them, and can respond.

And so I know um this question has come up in the context of well, why don't judges look up you know what cases are pending, what ops are pending, and there really are strict limits about what judges can do to investigate cases that are before them.

Um happy to take questions on that.

I know Hannah has a lot of information on that topic if we want to delve further, but that kind of as a baseline, judges have a lot of rules about strictly not investigating cases, um except for the information that's presented in open court.

Um again, this is uh since 2022, and this is part of um the recommendations from the TB committee was to have coordination between domestic violence and domestic relations so that there wouldn't be um you know penalties or inconvenience to those parties that um go and file in um domestic violence or domestic relations.

Um and so that the coordination when someone has a domestic relations case, but they find themselves at 555 or another courthouse that they can easily get their um order of protection heard by the judge that's hearing their case.

So there is an exchange program set up between these two divisions to make sure that when EOPs um emergency orders of protection are filed into a domestic violence case, if there's a uh domestic relations case pending that those get heard by the judge who's familiar with the parties, familiar with the issues, and then can rule on that.

Um so there's a lot of coordination um between the judges of these two divisions to make sure that people are being heard um both um in an expedited manner, whether there's emergency, but also someone who may be familiar with their case.

And so there's just an example here.

I don't I don't know that we need to go through this, but if you have any questions, we can follow up.

And then finally, there was a question about uh uh violations of orders of protection or whoops as they call them and the role that's at the domestic uh relations uh division plays in these.

And so generally um when there's an order of protection, if there's a violation of it, it is a criminal matter.

And so it'd be handled by the state's attorney's office and it'll be handled at the D V courthouse because again, domestic relations does not handle uh criminal cases, they handle civil.

And so the the um violation um order would be there would be determination by the state's attorney's office whether to proceed on that, and they would proceed against that uh following those rules and do it in front of a DV judge at the DV courthouse for a violation, and then that would follow those rules.

Uh that's all that we had to present today.

I do want to um for this presentation, but I did also want to share um actually I'll take stop and take questions here because um we have something to share, just kind of the handout that we give to domestic relations litigants so they can see um what um resources are available to them.

And I'll share that next.

But uh just does anyone have questions on these um slides.

So anyone have any questions on that right away.

That was really helpful because I know those were some of the questions that we that we asked you, Kate that we had a meeting about last week, just about um, you know, the VOOPs and um just the coordination between DV and DR.

I think that's definitely been something that we've been looking at.

So thank you.

Thanks for clarifying that.

Um, does anyone have any questions?

I see Brian's hand.

I think Brian has his hand up.

Yes, thank you for the presentation.

Um question, and really this comes from the meeting we had this morning.

Um, you know, uh, we had a presenter from CPD go over Karina's law and who issues the search warrants for those that is that I believe those are civil.

So does that come out of domestic relations court in those cases?

So Anna can answer this more than I can, but it's both.

It's so it's DV and DR.

But Hannah, do you want to add some more detail to that?

Sure.

So Karina's Law was born out of a May 2025 amendment to the IDBA.

It has both a section for civil and a section for criminal Karina's law search warrant.

So under the civil code, any judge who is hearing a search warrant when a search warrant has been requested when there has been a it's not probable cause under the constitutional standard that we know it as, it's sort of Karina's law version of probable cause.

So a different standard, a civil standard of probable cause, um, that I will note for everybody on here implicates multiple constitutional amendments.

Um if the petitioners are able to meet sort of a threshold standard, then a civil judge can issue a Karina's law search warrant that is a civil search warrant.

So to sort of recap what the civil search warrant does is the judge takes a um a set of testimony.

If the petitioner can establish that they have seen the gun recently for our judges, we've said in training, it has to be within the last month or so.

Um, and they can identify a place where the gun is kept and they can describe the gun with a level of specificity, um, then the search warrant will issue to the police department.

From there, what happens is police have under the statute between um 48 to 48 plus 96 hours to investigate further.

So the police are still held to the constitutional probable cause standard, which is under the Fourth Amendment.

Um remember that when you are doing a search warrant for firearms, you are implicating the respondent's second amendment right to own firearms.

So it's a very, very serious and high-level threshold that people need to meet to be able to have probable cause to serve the search warrant.

So the police will do an investigation to maintain their sort of ability to work within the constitu the constitutional standards that they have to take on.

And then also CPD, um, which is where a majority of our search warrants are going to has a um a uh consent decree with the governor's office that has additional standards that they need to meet before they execute a search warrant due to issues with search warrant execution in the past.

So there's various, various other legal issues that we're dealing with with these search warrants.

If police can establish the level of probable cause that they need, then they will begin to try and serve the search warrant with uh it's called the FIT, the firearms investigation team.

So that typically involves use of SWAT, a SWAT-like team to go in and serve the search warrant.

Um, there is a different standard and a different um system under the criminal version of Karina's law when a Karina's Law search warrant is requested under a criminal OP.

That's because the state's attorney is the one requesting it.

So it's far more like a traditional search warrant where there's typically a confidential informant coming in, the police are actually requesting the search warrant, and all of the investigation is done up front.

Great.

Thank you, Hannah.

That's super helpful.

Thank you.

Definitely.

Um thank thanks for clarifying all that.

I have a question.

We heard this morning that the warrants are being served before the order is being served.

Um, do you see any issue with that?

No, that's the safest for the police, the search warrant and if you read the statute, the statute intends for the search warrant and the EOP to be um served concurrently.

So that's what they're doing.

They're served, they're waiting to serve the search warrant and or the EOP until the search warrant can be served.

The reason why is that a search warrant is supposed to give um, it's done with an element of surprise, right?

So the only way that a search warrant is going to be successful is if the guns are where the confidential informant or in this case the petitioner says that they are.

If a uh respondent is given notice, he can hide the guns.

The search warrant is very specific to where a search can be had.

And under Karina's law, it can only be um for a piece of property that the respondent himself owns, himself or herself.

Sorry.

So the respondent themselves owns.

So for example, I had a petitioner in one of my judges' rooms a couple of weeks ago and she said, yeah, I think he keeps a gun at his friend Marge's house.

We don't have jurisdiction over Merges House under the statute, nor do we have jurisdiction over Marge's house under the constitution.

So we couldn't issue a search warrant.

So if respondents are getting notice that a search warrant is going to be executed for their guns, they are going to move those guns somewhere.

And then a search warrant is not going to be successful.

Um typically, you know, and we talked about this before.

Just because a respondent isn't served with an EOP right away, doesn't mean the EOP isn't in effect.

So if a uh if a petitioner, you know, has an EOP with a search warrant, typically the delay in the service of the EOP is only about at most, I would say 120 hours about.

And that's if the police come in for an additional extension of the 48 hours on top of like the 96 plus an additional 48.

Okay.

So at most it's 120-ish hours.

Don't check me on my math, I'm a lawyer.

I didn't do well in there.

So it's around that, right?

So during that time, if the respondent goes to the petitioner's home and the respondent harasses the petitioner and tries to abuse the petitioner in any way, all the petitioner does is she calls 911 and says, I have an active EOP that has not been served yet.

Police then come out and are able to short form him.

Um so it won't give away that the search warrant is in place.

The search warrant can still be executed, but regardless, they are still held to that standard of the EOP, that protection is still in place regardless if service happens or not.

The reason again, Katie, that we are holding off on a service of the EOP is first and foremost for safety of the police officers for compliance.

Well, actually, first and foremost for compliance with the statute for safety of the police officers and to ensure that it is like any search warrant that issued is actually effective.

Sure.

And then just another kind of question.

Um so you said like a judge can't do um a deep dive into the cases before.

Um, but is is any are they notified if there's an like uh order protection that hasn't been served yet that was assigned to a criminal case?

No.

Okay.

Only if the petitioner, the respondent notifies them within a case.

So judges are um we have to think about the three branches of the government, right?

So there's legislative, judicial, executive.

Judicial is supposed to be completely impartial.

So the way that we remain impartial, like regardless of what's before them, right?

Like you have to think of like juvenile cases with some of the worst abuse that you can see, regardless, a judge's job is to be completely impartial.

And that's what makes the system works, and that's what balances our system of three houses of government.

So for the judge to be completely impartial, they can only learn of information that's coming to them that's presented to them appropriately and properly through the parties.

So that means that a party has to provide that information to a judge in a proper pleading or in a hearing.

Um, you know, we learn of most of the criminal OPs.

If there is a criminal OP in place, typically what's happening is the parties are coming in with counsel or the ASA is telling the petitioner, say, you or whoever has the OP, right?

The protected party to go into their case and file a notice for the judge to see that there is a criminal OP.

The other thing that we will do is that if a judge catches that there's a D case going on, so typically a DV judge will see, hey, there's a D case going on, they will then sever that criminal OP out and they'll send it over to us.

But that is on sort of the parties to do because again, the judges can't look up parties.

It's a really really strict ethical guideline.

So if the parties notify the criminal judge, hey, I have a D case going on, then the judge can sever that way.

Otherwise, what's happening is the ASA is typically telling the petitioner to tell their D judge that there's a criminal OP, at which case we will then work to sever out the criminal OP, make it a civil OP and put it into us so that we can control sort of what's going on with the children in particular.

That's what we're most worried about is if there's kids involved because the OPs have issues, have sort of effects and impacts on how we do parenting time.

So I know on like I don't know if anyone from the state's attorney is here.

I know they set up a process to review a criminal court to look for civil OPs, you know, at um at bond a pre-bond court.

Um, so on the civil side, basically it would be up to the party, like, you know, in other words, the victim or survivor to notify the judge that they have a criminal OP.

And then can someone look it up?

Or how is that like how if someone notify it?

So again, they have to provide notice to the judge through a filing or through a proper evidentiary.

Give me one second.

Sorry, I have a OP question.

Sorry.

Um the, I mean, it has to be noticed up by the petitioner.

Yes.

Kate, I don't know the sort of ins and outs of what's happening in criminal court.

There's also Katie different standards for civil versus criminal in terms of like there's different legal standards, right?

And there's different involvement of the state.

Um, and at bond, there's different rights that are implicated than in a civil hearing at the state at the bond stage, there's a different set of rights that are implicated than in a full criminal trial stage.

So it's a little bit more complicated than just being able to say like yes or no, that one person has to notify versus the state notifying.

Okay, sure.

I think we're just looking at trying to increase service.

So um, like so can I can I actually ask you about that?

Because there's been a lot of questions about service and our service records indicate that I think we're at like 95% served on the DRD side for civil OPs.

So I'm confused where that data is coming from.

Um, our service records are incredibly incredibly high.

And then the 5% that isn't served are typically out of state, um, which has to do with getting other states to actually accept our EOPs for service, which is a state issue and a legislative issue, I would say.

Sure.

I I there's a data request now, I think that will clarify all of this that that's coming, I think expected this week.

Um, but that data originally came from um the Kirk County Sheriff's Office.

The I Yeah, so and it was just like I believe leads.

Um, and then find my final question, I promise I'll pass it off.

Um for the violations of orders of protection.

Um is somebody like is somebody given the the state's attorneys like a contact or like if someone comes in and says I have you know ring camera video and and my order was violated, like how how does that process work to let that walk them through a VOLP?

So judges cannot, just like judges are neutral parties, judges cannot provide any sort of legal assistance or legal advice.

It's the same with all judicial staff, it's under the canon, it's under the state harbor policy, like it's very strict because you just can't do it.

So I want to put that out there first.

That we aren't able to provide any sort of legal advice.

We can provide procedural advice in terms of like the most that I can really say to people is you need to file a motion, go to the clerk's office, they'll be able to help you.

That's where we're at.

Um, it's a long-standing sort of understanding and a long-standing rule within the judicial system that there is no legal advice from judges.

So I want to sort of preface and sort of frame my answer through that overview for everybody.

Um, if a person comes in and says, hey, I have a ring camera video.

So first of all, most petitioners are gonna call 911 because at the end of every single OP hearing, we say this is a piece of paper.

It's enforceable only by 911.

So please call 911 if this is violated and make a report to the police.

The police will then come out and do a full police report.

Now, what I will tell you is that we are seeing a massive, massive um not refusal or the ASA does not take boobs.

They are not, they it's a low prosecution level.

And I would definitely suggest asking for a percentage and for data on how many people are referred to them, how many people go into screening, and how many people are actually screened in for a violation of order of protection hearing.

It's pretty low.

Um, I think that since the new state's attorney has come in, it has increased, but it's still pretty low percentage-wise.

So we have no control over that.

That's the state's attorney's policy.

Now, 911 will come in, the police will take a report, and then they'll say you have to go to DV screening at 555.

Um, what I will say, and Madeline, I see you down, Miss Bear, I see you at the corner.

I know that you probably have work with this.

What I will say is that if an attorney goes in with somebody, like a private attorney goes into the state's attorney, they have been just from my experience, they are more likely to get picked up from screening to do a full case.

And if they go in as a self-represented litigant, that's where my working with legal aid Chicago prior to coming into this.

Um so, and that's just because attorneys are able to sort of they know the law, right?

And so attorneys are able to have that conversation a little bit more clearly than a self-represented litigant.

That's again something that you would have to talk to the state about.

Um, we from there, then the state will either choose to prosecute or they will choose not to prosecute.

Now, if they come into our courtrooms and they say there was a violation, the judge will say you need to go to the ASA.

You have to go to 555 and ask for DVD screening.

That is the extent of the legal advice that we are able to give them.

Um, we can direct them then to like what room they're in.

We can certainly do a warm handoff over to DV, and by warm handoff, I mean I call my counterpart, Renata Stiel over at 555, and I say, hey, there's going to be somebody coming in in an hour so that she can at least, you know, alert their staff to look for them.

But that is the extent of what the judiciary is able to do under statutes, under the canons and under the state barber policy.

Thank you.

Um, I think so, yeah, the questions that we sent in that email too, that that does make sense.

That first one that we asked, Hannah, the like what resources are approved for DR court and uh where they're located.

So kind of what you said before.

And like Katie, did you mean resources?

Like, what are they able to provide to survivors?

And you're saying you're not really allowed to do that because it's um because you're not allowed to give legal advice.

Is that kind of what you were asking, Katie or yeah, I mean, I guess just like we heard last summer from a lot of people that they were not, you know, did not feel like they were given resources.

I'm just wondering if anything's changed.

And then also if someone does say, you know, I need help with housing, I need help with, you know, I understand that there's the civil legal office in the basement, and I know the capacity is limited, but like if there's something that comes up, some of these cases go on for 10 years, 12 years.

If the need for resources comes up, is there anyone that is there any referral process for for assistance?

So Kate, I if I can answer just this first part, or unless you want to take this, but I just want to reiterate that the judiciary is a is just judges, right?

The judiciary is a very strict box of what we are allowed to do.

Um we are not sort of for housing, Katie, for example, we don't have the resources for that.

That and that's certainly not within what the judicial branch is allocated to do within our civil system.

Um, you know, we can certainly uh we are here to get their case in to start the case to provide them with a resolution and then to get them out and sort of living the best that they can.

Um, so no, if they come in and they say we need housing, the judicial system and the judges don't have any real power to do anything about that.

That's kind of where I would turn to you guys as the legislative branch, the board of commissioners, to be able to create resources for survivors to have housing assistance.

So that's when you we say you can call 311.

That's about what it is.

But I need everybody to sort of remember that like the judiciary is here to help with civil and criminal court cases, and that's what we are here for, and that's what the branch of legislature or what this branch of government is for.

Um, in terms of then to answer your question about like providing different resources.

Again, the judiciary is a neutral third party person that applies the law that is written by the legislative branch to the facts of a case at hand to then interpret the law and create outcomes for a party.

So we cannot provide any, and I think it's inappropriate for judges to provide referrals to specific providers.

What we do have is we have a list of sort of high up legal providers.

So for example, CarPLES, C-A-R-P-L-S is a sort of one-stop help desk shop that will take in people's information and then give them referrals to other civil legal service providers that are sort of the best fit for their facts.

Um, there's Illinois court help, which is a text line and a call line that they can sort of take down basic information of the facts of a case and then provide a person who's texting or calling in with um resources and referrals and assistance.

We also have a layout I L A O, which is Illinois Legal Aid Online, which we give to people, which is just sort of basic information on that on legal um it like provides sort of a legal how-to, um, and then also refers to different like civil legal services providers.

But again, we cannot under the canons and under sort of how the government is set up, we cannot provide resources or referrals to specific practitioners.

It's inappropriate and it violates some of the canons.

And then Kate, I'll let you speak more.

Yeah, I was just gonna, Amy, if it's okay, just share like what we give to Litigant so everyone can see like what that looks like.

It might just be helpful.

Hang on.

Okay, so this is can everyone see this?

Mm-hmm.

So this is what a litigant would receive from a domestic relations in a domestic relations case.

And then these both free or um subsidized legal um assistance and then information about how to file your case um all these things that you know may be helpful for you and that are available but that the court isn't directing you to anyone you know any attorney specific or any specific yeah exactly and because Hannah said we do have to stay in our lane ethically um and so but we want to you know we are also a point of contact right with more people and so we want to make sure that these resources which are available um people have notice of them so that's um what we do share and I'll send that out with the slide so everyone can see that.

Thank you.

Yeah um so that's just to show like what what we're doing and Christina did you want to add to that at all?

Uh it's a little tangential but just uh because I know we have folks that are looking at the budget book or will be looking at the budget book at some point there are a couple lines um in the budget that refer to Cook County legal aid and housing debt and that that is a shared expense between the chief judge and the office of the president but important to note that that is for legal aid services and not direct like housing services.

So um just want to clarify so that if you do suddenly see a line item for housing that that's not what that is there.

And Amy if I if I may I'd like to add um on to this conversation so in the past the board of commissioners have added positions um for example um in 2019 I believe I added some additional positions to the state attorney's office um for court advocates and navigators and just this last uh budget cycle we also added some additional um so but they are within you know to Hannah's point they aren't within um the two judges per se it's through the state attorney or other um avenues because um you know it does it it's more appropriate to do it that way or we've done it independently um by funding um organizations that do DV work that are willing to do advocacy and navigating um or helping navigate the court systems um and we are give we've given them grants um through the JAC so that then they can be in the courtrooms and kind of help um with uh some court advocacy some referral services and also just again to navigate the court system so they are separate um we're not where we want to be to be quite honest Katie I think that there's a lot that we could do um in order for us to continue to support the survivors that are going into the court systems that may not really understand the complexities and may need additional support systems.

I mean we've talked about it a lot on how you know a survivor may not have you know um some economic stability or may not have um you know help with housing and other of the crucial social services that we need to figure out how to like close the gap for for that um individual to actually become a fully independent um and supported throughout this process but that that is definitely something that I'm hoping you know we can recommend as a group and as a task force because that is really crucial for the survivor um in the long run.

Commissioner and I if I can just also reiterate go ahead go ahead Hannah sorry okay if I can also reiterate too like the the court navigators and stuff that's what the ASA's office that's criminal so anybody who's involved in civil court so if they don't have any touch point with criminal then they don't have access to that through our courts um so just to sort of remind everybody that we have those two separate language too.

Thanks.

Yeah and I I know uh Madeline is on here and um as well so I don't want to speak but um on their behalf but uh my understanding is that there's not funding for the advocates to be in domestic relations court yet um and just I I think most of you some of you know um that I used to run the or uh started the sport of release center at the jail worked at a lot of bond court and a jail discharge um in a previous life but um you know it just seems in criminal court there's so many different steps and so many people offering people assistance um I was the last you know kind of stopped before people were being released um and it um I worked with judges all the time and gave them referral lists referral list for housing referral lists for all kinds of wraparound services they call me all the time with cases so it just um I understand that there's probably constitutional law that that precludes them from should be doing that but it just seems like victims come into DV if they need child support they their case gets transferred and there's just a drop off of services um so I guess one of the recommendations would really be how to how to you know figure out how to give people that are going through that process the same amount of resources as people that are going through the other processes in the court um you're saying like from going from D V to DR.

Um, so I get one of the recommendations would really be how to how to, you know, figure out how to give people that are going through that process the same amount of resources as people that are going through the other processes in the court.

Um you're saying like some going from DV to DR.

Yes.

Yeah, Madeline, please jump in.

Yes.

So also, can I just make one comment too?

I think the other thing to remember is that I think what's hard, and I understand what you're saying, Katie.

I think what's hard is that in criminal court, which is part of the reason why we see a lot more services, we see probation officers, that kind of stuff.

In criminal court, the state is bringing prosecution against a person on behalf of the citizens of the state for a criminal matter.

In civil court, it's two private citizens engaging in a lawsuit against each other.

So it's similar to like even if I understand it's a it's a civil DV case, it's a civil domestic relations case.

I understand that we're still dealing with heavy topics, but ultimately it's two private citizens engaging against each other.

And so to put money from the state towards a private citizen's action is something that I think is really important to highlight and to remember that you'd be asking to use state funds or county funds or any sort of funds to come in and fund private matters between two people.

And so that's just something that we have always been met with when we bring up the um, we as in the PJ, my presiding judge, when we bring up, hey, we need more resources.

Typically, what we are hearing and what we do understand is that civil is two private citizens engaging in a lawsuit.

So it would be similar to asking, you know, for the county to provide money and resources for perhaps um like two companies that are engaged in litigation in the law division, you know.

And I think that's something to highlight and to remember that civil court is very different from criminal court in terms of the constitutionality, in terms of statute, and in terms of how funding comes and what the expectations are for representation.

Sorry, Madeline, I didn't mean to interrupt you.

No, no, not at all.

And again, I'm not a member of the working group.

So I'm kind of wary of like, you know, my my role here kind of as observer, but also happy to help answer questions.

Um, so the network advocating against domestic violence, we're a collaborative partnership organization.

We have 40 plus service providers that are members across kind of Cook, Chicago land um and beyond as well, but most are cook-based.

Um, just to provide a little bit of context for domestic relations uh services, we have lifespan, legal aid society of metropolitan family services, ascent justice, and legal action Chicago.

Those are all kind of legal aid attorneys.

Um, the difficulty, right, with funding is legal aid attorneys cost more than a domestic violence advocate because they're attorneys and they have a JD.

Um, so we do have some funding from the Office of the Chief Judge to help fund some of these programs.

Um, I think with respect to their work in domestic relations, but that is a little bit of a difficulty, right?

Is just getting funding to be able to do that work.

Most of the funding, um, some of which has come from the JAC, which has been great, um, goes to domestic violence advocates who are not legal professionals, but they can help survivors fill out this paperwork.

Um, I just kind of want to make a note because of right, we have advocates primarily at 555 and in the suburban courthouses, we primarily have legal aid attorneys in domestic relations.

I think that there's a little bit of wariness among our partners of having more advocates specifically within domestic relations, not from a desire of not wanting to provide services or kind of support that area.

That's not it at all.

If we can get more funding, kind of however we can between city, county, state, federal, you name it, um, to have more advocates and legal aid attorneys throughout the county will do it.

Um, the difficulty, right, is the legal complexity of domestic relations cases.

We're kind of wary of having advocates kind of partake in that because they're not legal professionals.

They have kind of limitations around their role.

Um, we do have some providers who do assist as much as they can, specifically culturally specific providers because of language barriers and whatnot, um, and just understanding kind of cultural religious norms that may impact someone's domestic relations cases where they do support where they can.

Um, but yes, I just want to be cognizant of like being really clear about the role of a legal aid attorney versus an advocate and why we kind of see some of that split between the different courthouses.

Um, and overall, yes, yes, funding for services to be able to provide more of it is always top of mind for us.

And Madeline, if I can just expand on that, just to sort of describe why it is a little bit more complicated to get advocates and legal aid attorneys into.

So why we would prefer to have attorneys and why I think a lot of the partners are, and Madeline obviously correct me if I'm wrong, why a lot of the partner legal aid um agencies would prefer to have attorneys is because in DR, you're working under two statutes.

So not only are you working under the Illinois Domestic Violence Act, you're also working under the Illinois Marriage and Dissolution and Marriage Act, the IMDMA, which is I hate to say it's more complicated than the IDBA.

So the IDBA is sort of a snapshot in time.

So the way that the presiding judge of DB sort of describes the DV division is that it's the emergency room.

So they're doing triage, they're getting somebody in, and then they're giving people out to the specialist.

DRD is the specialist area because you have so many more remedies available for the IMD under the IMDMA specifically for families.

So you have to take into account not only the IDBA and sort of the snapshot two-year POP, you have to take into account the long-term issues that go with having families that go, you know, our cases last from birth to 18 years plus for these kiddos.

Um and you really have to take into account the complicated financial issues, the complicated parenting time issues, and you have to take into account a really, really complex set of statutes and rules under the I and DMA, which is really hard for an advocate to take into account.

Um, and it's just better suited for an attorney.

So would us like social workers, like I guess like if someone someone needs help and there's not attorneys, because we we've talked to some of the the groups mentioned, and they don't have a lot of capacity for DR, the cases go on for so long, it's really hard to take a case.

So if someone needs help, what what what's the answer?

Is it more funding for like specific domestic relations attorneys?

Is it like like I said on the criminal side, you have a public defender, and I know that this is different, Hannah.

Um, but I think if you ask the average public, you know, they want victims to to get the same amount of resources, um, especially with the with the harm that's being caused and the murder rate in in Chicago that we know of.

Like, so how can we get more services to DR victims would be a big outcome of this task force for all of us?

I mean, I think first and foremost, we have to go with education of what the judiciary is here for.

I think that there's a there's a misunderstanding of what OCJ is able to do within our canon.

So I think that's sort of first and foremost.

And I know that that's sort of a bleak outlook, but that's just sort of one of my points is that we have to understand that judges are here to move cases from start to start to finish.

And then we have to look at community resources.

Um, in a perfect world, right?

Like if you want assistance for people to holistically address their needs and for survivors to holistically address their needs, then there needs to be something separate from the judiciary where they would be able to go to maybe city hall and get access to a social worker who then has access to unlimited funding for housing, who has access to unlimited funding for education, who has access to immigration assistance, who has access to food assistance where we can stop having, you know, these food deserts on the south side and the west side, all of that stuff that can't be connected to their court case because that needs to be applicable to everybody, not just a survivor who has a D case number, right?

Because a lot of people don't have D case numbers.

A lot of people don't file for EOPs, and we still know that those are women, children, and men who are affected by violence.

So there should be a separate office that's not connected to the judiciary that isn't required to have a case number attached to it.

Now, in terms of having assistance, if you're saying we need assistance and resources for survivors in a court case, then what you do need is a legal advocate.

And I think that that's going to be the most beneficial for somebody because they're going to be able to move not a legal advocate, I apologize, an attorney.

That is going to be beneficial to move a case through, but an attorney is also limited in what they can do.

Um, attorneys are not social workers, they should not be treated as social workers.

And so what the attorney can do is give legal advice and get you a final judgment with parenting clean, but they can't necessarily assist you with housing.

They can't necessarily assist you with finding educational resources, you know, all of that kind of stuff.

An attorney really should be thought of as a legal specialist who gets your case from point A to point B.

So I think there's it's sort of a loaded question, and I'm happy to, you know, discuss that viewpoint.

But I think that we need to sort of rethink about what each sort of resource is here for, right?

Like OCJ and the judges, and Kate definitely step in if I'm overstepping, but like OCJ and the judges are here to move cases along.

They're here to get a parenting plan in place, they're here to get an EOP in place.

I think the community resources through the legislative branch through the executive branches need to be the ones who then are dealing with everything outside of those orders and getting those resources for people where then people who are specialists, social workers, psychologists, housing specialists are then able to help people move on past their law case or past their legal case.

Yeah, okay.

No, I mean, I think that's really that really is helps us understand this a lot better, just like what you're able to provide, what you're not.

But that does, you know, make sense that there's like a specific job that needs to be done and it needs to be neutral.

So I think that's a good good way to look at that.

Um we only have a few minutes left.

There was a couple other things I wanted to go over, but we're probably um gonna run out of time.

Just in that though, like the like the connection with the DV to the DR.

I know one of the things that we talked about was court uh reporting and like in the uh DR courts, like if there's a way, like are those um, are those recorded?

Is there a way to you know transcribe those?

Is is I know there's probably like a lack of court reporters, but in those DR courts, is there a way that people can get that recorded?

Because I know that was some of the things that people mentioned as well.

Yeah.

So this is an email that I sent to you, Commissioner Miller and Brian, I think a couple months ago.

Yeah.

So I would ask that you distribute that and the resources that I provided, but to answer on this call.

Yeah, just for this call.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So it uh there are only two statutory requirements or local rule requirements for um domestic relations to record and have a court reporter at.

And that is for in-camera interviews of children and default proof apps.

So those are the only two that we are legally required to have somebody at.

Um, we do try and get a court reporter for our emergency judge.

We have one judge who acts as sort of the stop gap.

If none of the other judges are available to hear an EOP, then the emergency judge comes in.

We have one court reporter assigned to them.

We do try and get every single EOP that comes into us recorded or recorded with a court reporter.

That being said, the court reporter's office has suffered significant losses.

We have had multiple um multiple meetings with the court reporter's office.

They're overloaded.

So not only court reporters are not, it used to be one court reporter was assigned to a judge to one direction, which is how it was.

That's how criminal is.

That is not like that in civil, at least here in daily.

For us, our court reporters are assigned to DRD.

They're assigned to, I believe, probate and mental health.

Probate has far more statutory requirements of what needs to be recorded.

So they are always prioritized unless we have a default uh default prove up or we have a um in-camera interview proceeding.

They're also assigned to mental health.

I think mental health is statutorily required to have everything court reported as it should, right?

And so that is going to be prioritized over us.

Um, and it the hard thing is is that I think we only have three court reporters right now that are assigned to DRD.

We keep seeing a lot of retirements, keep seeing a lot of um a significant amount of people leaving for private court reporting because it pays so much better.

And it's also like there's not uh a way, people just don't want to be a court reporter anymore.

Um, I think if you if you see the recruiting, recruitment has gone down so much because so many schools have closed.

I know OCJ is doing a lot of work to try and incentivize the hiring and it's just not working for whatever reason, right?

And Kate L'Pass it off to you.

I know you're allowed for not.

Could it be could I guess like that would like, you know, I guess like in the court too, is there a way just that something could be recorded just to record or like we record every EOP with Zoom.

And if somebody wants to request a transcript, they can request for the court reporter to transcribe it.

That being said, there are um there's cost requirements, which are on OCR's uh page.

There has to be cost requirements because we have to pay those people somehow.

Um, if you do have a fee waiver, then the transcript is free.

Kate, I'll let you speak more.

Yeah, I just wanted to emphasize that we, yeah, we do have Zoom recording of all EOPs.

So that and as Hannah said, there's a there's a fee for transcripts for those.

So we do have court reporters that can provide transcripts of that cost money unless you have a fee waiver.

That's the standard 298 petition that is for any court case.

So if you have a fee waiver in place in your court case, you can get a fee waiver for a transcript as well.

Um Nancy put a question in the chat about the um source of funding for court reporters.

They're paid by the state.

Um so these are state reimbursed um positions.

Um, and as Hannah said, I just really want to emphasize that is um not through lack of hiring positions, trying to hire um uh Janine Lamancha Potter, who is the person who's in charge of our court reporting office could tell you all the recruiting efforts she's gone to.

This simply is not a profession that is producing court reporters, trained court reporters.

Um, and so it's not that we aren't trying to hire them, they're not available.

They just don't exist.

Yeah, yes.

Right.

So um I know that ideas have been floated about you know changing the requirements for court reporting, so that it could be, you know, more hybrid generative.

I those are things outside again, outside our wheelhouse as OCJ, um, but could be taken up by the legislative branch to change the rules about court reporting.

Um, but those are, you know, separate either Supreme Court rules or statutory rules that we follow.

Um, but again, we are recording all EOPs.

So any um order of protection that's heard can't it will have a Zoom recording of it that can be turned into a transcript.

Okay.

Well, great.

That's that's really helpful.

And um, yeah, we can we can talk again because I know we and Hannah, I know you sent something about the GAL as well.

That was one of the the questions we had, so I'll take a look at that.

And if we have any um, you know, other questions about that, that'll be great.

But this was really helpful.

Thank you guys for taking the time to go through all this and explain it.

Um, I really appreciate it.

Does anyone else before we hop off have any last minute questions or comments?

I would just like to ask if uh Kate or Hannah can send the specific statutes or Supreme Court rules um regarding the court reporting part, just so that we know exactly what we're what we're looking into, what needs to be addressed as part of uh the task force and the email sent to Amy and to Commissioner Miller and Brian.

So Amy, if you can forward that email to everybody.

I can do that.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Yeah.

All right.

If there's nothing else then, um, Commissioner and I, if you want to join the meeting.

I'll just make a quick announcement that our next executive meeting uh for the task force is going to be on Wednesday, April eighth at eight.

Um, sorry, at uh ten AM in the uh Cook County Boardroom.

So we'll be in um in person.

And with that um being said, any of the other uh working group meetings will be emailed shortly.

Again, thank you, Hannah.

Thank you, Kate, so very much for the explanation and the and the conversation.

I think is extremely helpful for us as we move forward.

And with that said, we will adjourn officially our working group.

Awesome.

Thank you, everybody.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.