Yes. Cook County hears emergency orders of protection on weekends — Saturday and Sunday, 1:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m., by remote hearing. You do not go to the courthouse. You email your petition to the after-hours clerk and see a judge over Zoom.
If you are in danger right now, call 911 first. Everything below assumes you are safe enough to read it.
The windows
Outside regular court hours, Cook County runs after-hours remote hearings at two fixed times:
- Monday through Friday, 9:00 p.m. to 3:00 a.m.
- Saturday and Sunday, 1:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.
You may email your forms during those hours, or in the hour before they open. So a weekend petition can go in from noon, and a weeknight one from 8:00 p.m.
These windows do not run on national or legal court holidays.
The hours nobody mentions
Here is the part that matters if you are reading this at an odd hour. There are stretches with no civil filing route open at all. The longest runs Saturday evening at 6:00 p.m. through Sunday at noon — roughly eighteen hours. There is another from Sunday at 6:00 p.m. until Monday morning, and a shorter one on weeknights between 4:30 p.m. and 8:00 p.m.
If you are inside one of those gaps and you are not safe, the answer is 911, not a filing. Police can respond and make an arrest, and a criminal court can address contact without the civil court being open at all. An advocate is reachable at any hour: CAWC's 24-hour hotline is (773) 278-4566, and the Illinois Domestic Violence Hotline takes calls and texts at 877-863-6338.
What to have ready
Before the window opens, get these together. It is much harder to assemble them while a clerk is waiting.
- An email address — the clerk communicates with you there.
- A phone or computer with Zoom installed. Install it beforehand, not at 1:05 p.m.
- An address for receiving court papers. It can be an alternate address if you do not want the other person to know where you are staying.
- What you know about the other person: description, address, where they work.
- What happened, with dates, as specifically as you can manage.
Whether the Cook County form is the right one
Use it if you or the other person lives in Cook County, if the abuse happened in Cook County, or if you are staying in Cook County temporarily to get away from abuse elsewhere. For any other Illinois county, or for a time when the after-hours court is closed, the statewide Order of Protection form is the correct one instead.
Illinois Legal Aid Online publishes the guided Cook County form here: Emergency Order of Protection — Cook County.
What happens next
An emergency order is short-term and is entered without the other person present. The court sets a return date, the other person is served, and at that hearing they can appear and respond. That second hearing is a different proceeding from the first one, and it is where most of the work is.
There is no filing fee to petition for an order of protection in Illinois.
If you want help
You can file without a lawyer, and many people do. If you would rather have someone prepare the petition or stand with you on the return date, you can reach us at (312) 965-5618. We are a law firm, not a crisis line — if you are in danger, call 911 or one of the hotlines above first.