The Search for Cook County’s New Public Defender

Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle has started a search process for the new Public Defender in Cook County. On March 31, 2015, Abishi Cunningham’s six-year term as Public Defender for Cook County will end. Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle has elected to replace Cunningham with...
January 13, 2015

Innovations in Family Courts

The Domestic Relations Division of the Cook County Court is carefully examining ways to make some significant changes which will improve the level of service for everyone needing to establish parentage of a child, get child support for a child or come to a shared agreement for parenting.  Chicago Ap...
June 11, 2014

Courts and Public Accountability

“Judge Sullivan, Take Note”, an editorial in the Chicago Tribune Monday, June 9th, reminds us that the courtrooms do not belong to the judges, they belong to the people. The editorial references two recent steps by courts administrators to make Illinois’ courts more open and transparent: the Illinoi...
June 10, 2014

Reforming the Cook County Parentage Court

Chicago Appleseed Fund for Justice had the privilege of providing research and analysis to a task force examining conditions for litigants and attorneys in the Parentage section of Domestic Relations Division of the Cook County Circuit Court. Our full report is now available. Cook County takes an u...
January 20, 2014