On Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2024, more than 280 legal professionals with business in Chicagoland joined InfoTrack for an informative, free webinar on the impact of the upcoming change to the rules regarding original process service in Cook County.
After the presentation, InfoTrack vice president of business development Jeff Karotkin (a former president of the National Association of Professional Process Servers) fielded questions from the audience about the practical implications of this new amendment to 735 ILCS 5/2 202 Sec. 2-202.
Several questions about InfoTrack ServeIT—which allows law firms to order and track process serves online through local servers—were answered by InfoTrack process serving specialist Lydia Malone.
Catch up on the most important callouts from this Q&A session below.
1. Does this new process serving law only apply to Cook County cases?
Answered by Jeff Karotkin
Yes. The new law [735 ILCS 5/2 202 Sec. 2-202] applies to any county that’s over 3 million residents. In Illinois, there’s only one. It’s Cook County. I think they have about 5.22 million residents.
None of the other collar counties have gotten to that threshold yet, so, therefore, that statute [requiring sheriff service] didn’t apply to them in the first place.
The amended statute only applies to Cook County, which means you are free to choose a private process server—or anybody who’s authorized to serve—in any Illinois county now, where you didn’t have that option in Cook County before.
2. Where will we have to pay the $5 fee to the sheriff?
Answered by Jeff Karotkin
Ideally, we would have had communication from [Tyler Technologies], that is the host of the [Illinois] eFiling portal, or the clerk on this prior to this session.
We expected to, but we didn’t get it.
We expect that there will be a new line item in the “Additional Services” or “Court Fees” section of each EFSP’s eFiling workflow that is titled “Summons” when you’re filing your case. You will indicate how many documents you are uploading that you need issued, and then that will drive the fee.
The fee for the existing alias summons we expect to stay the same. In theory, what we think is going to happen is if you’re filing an alias summons, there’s a $6 fee for that already, plus a $5 fee for the that goes to the sheriff. That’s what we expect to see until they tell us otherwise.
3. Previously, private process servers did not need to be licensed private detectives. Are we still able to use a non-detective private process server?
Answered by Jeff Karotkin
Yeah, nothing changes there. So the statute was specific as to anybody that was defined everybody, including detectives that were authorized to serve process. Nothing changed in the statute. So, you can use anybody that you had been using who was duly authorized by statute.
4. Is there a copy of the order eliminating the need to appoint a process server? Do we still need to get an order every time that we need an alias summons?
Answered by Jeff Karotkin
Yeah, that’s a two-part order. The judge—I believe it was Circuit Judge E. Kenneth Wright—issued the order eliminating the necessity to appoint, or essentially rescinding any standing order or or appointment order that might already exist.
And the second part of that question… nothing changes. You still need to handle alias summons as the way you always did, as far as getting an order.
5. Will the special process servers know to deduct $5 from their fee? What if they don’t? Won’t they just raise their fee by $5?
Answered by Jeff Karotkin
There are two associations—a detective association and a process server association in Illinois—who have been actively communicating with the membership of their groups to let them know what they shall do. It says they “shall” deduct.
I can’t answer the second part, “What will they actually do?” Because we’re not them. They may or may not show that on their invoice. But, if I were them, I would.
I can’t answer what do you do if they don’t. I would imagine maybe you go, know, talk to the sheriff’s office or something. I don’t know.
It doesn’t say anything in the new statute about]what happens if process servers don’t.
6. Will process servers be able to file the proof of service or proof of non-service?
Answered by Jeff Karotkin
Yes. Nothing changes there. They can file their proof for non-service declaration.
7. What guardrails, if any, have been put into place to prevent the recurrence of the problems known as “sewer service” with private servers, which led to the enactment of the law requiring the sheriff that gets the first crack at service?
Answered by Jeff Karotkin
The amended statute doesn’t speak to that issue at all. So any guardrails that exist now for private process servers, I would imagine, would continue to exist.
If, for whatever reason, there was a server who was committing acts like that, I would imagine there are criminal or civil remedies, just like there might be now.
8. If a private person over 18 is serving, do we have to go through a private detective first?
Answered by Jeff Karotkin
The answer is no. Anybody that’s authorized under the statute now you can use to serve process. Which would include, detectives, process servers with what’s called a perk card, that type of thing. So as long as they’re working with or for an agency or they’re otherwise authorized under the existing statute, you can keep using them.
9. Is there any word regarding waiver of summons and whether the $5 fee can be waived or returned?
Answered by Jeff Karotkin
We don’t know yet.
Any questions that we don’t have a full answer on now, we’ll be jotting those down and addressing them in the second webinar in January. If you’d like to to hear back on any of those, go ahead and and register for that second session.
10. Will InfoTrack ServeIT always file a copy of the proof of service or non-service with the clerk?
Answered by Lydia Malone
That is an optional button when you’re ordering service of process through InfoTrack ServeIT. You can choose to have us file the proof of service. Generally, we don’t file proof of non-services.
If you want to explore that more with us, we can. I would say the majority of our clients don’t want us to file a proof of non-service due to the cost of the filing fee associated with that through InfoTrack.
Generally speaking, we only file the affidavits of actual service, not non-service.
11. If your first attempt at service fails, do you need to file a motion for leave to file an alias summons and appoint a special process server? Or are you able to skip that with the new statute?
Answered by Jeff Karotkin
Great question. If your first summons has run out of time, yes, you still need an order for an alias summons. So nothing changes there.
But you do not need a motion and order, or to get a standing order, to appoint a private process server.
12. Does one need still need to have a process server appointed who is not a licensed investigator?
Answered by Jeff Karotkin
What the statute says is there are a number of entities who are duly authorized to serve process now. None of that changed in the revision.
Learn more about the Cook County process serving rule change
InfoTrack’s full Dec. 17 ‘Ditch the Sheriff’ webinar sheds additional detail on a number of other critical questions, including:
- What do I need to do to start ordering from a private process server after Jan. 1?
- How (and where) do I pay the required $5 fee to the Cook County Sheriff?
- How do I order online from Chicago-area process servers?
You can view a full recording of the Dec. 17 webinar, along with the slides and supplemental materials, on the ‘Ditch the Sheriff’ webinar event page. Or, visit the ‘Ditch the Sheriff Pt. II’ registration page to sign up for our follow-up webinar on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2025 with Bob Rusch of Windy City Process Servers.
We’ll also be posting updates on our website as we learn more about 2025 Cook County, Illinois process serving rule change.
