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Community court-watching is exactly what it sounds like: members of the public taking time out of their days to watch court proceedings. But why?

In Chicago Appleseed’s Court Observation & Education Program (COEP), we see court-watching not only as an informative experience for volunteers but as a research tool in its own right. Data collected through court-watching enables us to understand what is actually happening in the courtrooms without relying on the perspectives of court actors. In fact, court-watching is especially valuable in Illinois.

Illinois is one of only six states where the judicial branch of the government is not required by public records laws like the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) or a court rule to disclose records requested of them. This means that the courts and court-related entities (including offices and elected officials) like clerks and chief judges are held to a lower standard of transparency than the rest of the government, and there is no way for members of the public, journalists, or research organizations like Chicago Appleseed to compel them to release data. Chicago Appleseed’s recently published brief goes into depth on this topic and our policy recommendations.

In the meantime, though, we’re missing a lot of useful data, but our court-watchers help us fill some of the gaps. For example, our court-watchers collected data in 2023 on civil asset forfeiture hearings, in which people try to reclaim their possessions from law enforcement, and that data is still being used for advocacy today. Last year, our court-watchers documented the racial and gender demographics of tenants in eviction court. This is obscure data we have no way to access other than by collecting it ourselves, so we are incredibly grateful to the volunteer court-watchers who make that possible.

Unsurprisingly, there’s more we want to find out about the courts in 2026! Specifically, we want to know what’s going on in pretrial detention hearings for domestic violence cases, and we are joining our partners in the End Policing for Profit Coalition to collect more data on civil asset forfeiture cases.

We need your help to collect this data! This is what grassroots research and advocacy looks like: Our volunteer court-watchers are on the front lines, inside courtrooms daily to support our mission for a fairer, more accessible and transparent legal system.

Will you join them? The training sessions for our upcoming projects will be virtual (as will the court-watching itself) and will be held on February 10th and 17th from 6-7:30 PM. You can sign up for either training session at chicagoappleseed.org/coep-training.