I previously wrote about the big change in Illinois jury trials and now I want to give you a quick update.  As a reminder, on June 1, 2015 an amendment to 735 ILCS 5/1105 went into effect, which reduces the number of jurors in civil trials from 12 to 6.

Not surprisingly, the defense bar decided to challenge the constitutionality of the amendment.  In Cook County, Law Division, many of these cases (the ones filed after 6/1/15) have been consolidated and are pending before J. William E. Gomolinski.  The lead case is Kakos v. Butler, 15 L 6691 with Donahue Brown as lead defense counsel and David Alexrod & Associates as lead plaintiff’s counsel.

A briefing schedule was recently set, with the briefs scheduled to be completed by December 16, 2015.  The matter is set for hearing on December 21, 2015.  The judge anticipates issuing his written ruling before the end of the year (which is quite impressive!).  He also advised he will not accept amicus briefs to be filed.

I will keep you updated on these events as the information is provided.  Also, if anyone out there has tried a case in front of a 6 person jury since June, 2015, I’d love to hear from you on how you think it impacted your case.

Special thanks to the Illinois Association of Defense Trial Counsel (www.iadtc.org) for keeping its members updated on these events.