Organization of the Illinois Compiled Statutes (ILCS)

This page is based in part on: Statutory Revision in Illinois, published by the Legislative Reference Bureau in 1918; and a 1999 web page written by Richard C. Edwards. A version of the 1999 web page appeared in Illinois Libraries, Vol. 75, No. 3, April 1993, published by the Illinois State Library.

Previous Compilations of the Statutes

Publication of the Illinois Revised Statutes

Codification under Public Act 86-523

Organizational Principles of ILCS

ILCS Numbering

Previous Compilations of the Statutes

Illinois officially revised its laws in 1827-29, 1833, 1845, and 1874. In those revisions, bills were passed arranging the laws as alphabetical chapters. (The 1819 session laws can also be considered a revision of the laws in some respects; see page 17 of Statutory Revision in Illinois.) Links to digitized versions of those statutes are available at Laws of Illinois, published by Western Illinois University.

The 1874 Illinois Revised Statutes were the last official organization of the statutes before ILCS took effect on January 1, 1993. Over time, the alphabetical arrangement of the Illinois Revised Statutes became less useful. Some chapters had become huge, unwieldy, and disorganized by the addition of new Acts. The Illinois Supreme Court, among others, had pointed out the confusion caused by the poor organization of the outdated Illinois Revised Statutes. The Court, in its 1988 and 1989 annual reports to the General Assembly, recommended consideration of recodification.

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Publication of the Illinois Revised Statutes

The 1874 Illinois Revised Statutes were an official arrangement of the statutes by the State in Illinois. The State, however, did not maintain the organizational scheme. When a new Act became law and needed to be placed within the framework of the Illinois Revised Statutes, that task was left to private publishers. The publishers were not consistent. One publisher might place a new Act in one chapter and another publisher place the same new Act in another chapter. Even if two publishers placed the Act in the same chapter, they each might assign different paragraph numbers. To solve the confusion and decrease the expense to its members, the Illinois State Bar Association decided in the 1930s to endorse the edition of a single publisher and to encourage all of its members to use only that edition. The Bar Association's endorsement solved those problems, but it created another problem: a single publisher making editorial decisions as to where to place new Acts in the chapters of the Illinois Revised Statutes allowed that publisher to assert a copyright interest in the arrangement of the Illinois Revised Statutes and to effectively prevent other publishers from entering the market. That publisher was West Publishing Company. Moreover, because the State had not maintained the organization and numbering of the Illinois Revised Statutes, it was an unofficial compilation of the statutes.

In the late 1980s, a dispute arose between West, which claimed a copyright interest, and Mead Data Central (then the owner of the LexisNexis research services), which wanted to publish the Illinois Revised Statutes. The dispute spilled over into the General Assembly and became a heavily lobbied issue. As a result, in 1987 the General Assembly passed House Bill 1924, which attempted to make the arrangement of the Illinois Revised Statutes official and to put the arrangement into the public domain for purposes of federal copyright law. Governor Thompson vetoed the bill, stating that he feared it would embroil the State in costly copyright litigation. In 1988, the General Assembly passed House Bill 3896, which had the same provisions as House Bill 1924. The Governor again vetoed the bill. West and Mead later settled their dispute.

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Codification under Public Act 86-523

In 1989 the General Assembly passed House Bill 757, which became Public Act 86-523. That Act directed the Legislative Reference Bureau (LRB) to submit to the General Assembly a plan for the comprehensive and systematic codification of the statutory law.

A Preliminary Plan dated November 29, 1990 was submitted. LRB received numerous suggestions from government officials and agencies, bar associations and other private organizations, publishers, and others. In light of those suggestions, LRB submitted a Revised Plan dated October 22, 1991. The Revised Plan suggested organizing the nearly 2,000 Acts into 67 chapters arranged within 9 major topic areas.

The Board of the Legislative Reference Bureau held a public hearing on November 6, 1991 concerning the Preliminary and Revised Plans. Those testifying at the hearing generally expressed strong support.

In 1992 the General Assembly passed House Bill 3810, which became Public Act 87-1005. Public Act 87-1005 directed LRB to file a compilation of the general Acts of Illinois. The compilation was filed by LRB, as directed by Public Act 87-1005, on September 14, 1992. The compilation is known as the Illinois Compiled Statutes or ILCS and took effect January 1, 1993. The compilation is an official compilation by the State and is entirely in the public domain for purposes of federal copyright law. Anyone may publish the statutes.

The previous official reorganizations of the statutes were also revisions in which new Acts were passed that superseded existing Acts. Those new Acts contained changes to the law that were deemed appropriate. In contrast, the compilation under Public Act 87-1005 was solely a reorganization; it did not make changes to the text of the law. This was undoubtedly a wise decision. The many problems that arose in the course of the 1874 revision, described in pages 25 through 35 of Statutory Revision in Illinois, might have paled in comparison to the difficulties that would have arisen in an attempt to revise nearly 2,000 Acts.

The compilation organized the general Acts of Illinois through Public Act 87-895 into 67 chapters arranged within 9 major topic areas. LRB makes additions, deletions, and changes to ILCS (for example, when new Acts become law or existing Acts are repealed) by filing documents as provided in Public Act 87-1005.

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Organizational Principles of ILCS

The approach in developing the organizational scheme of ILCS was to examine each of the 2,000 Acts and to inductively develop an organizational scheme based on that examination of the Illinois statutory law. The guiding principle of any organization of the statutory law should be to comprehensively and systematically organize that law so it is conveniently accessible to the people who need to use that law. To develop a functional arrangement, the following considerations must be analyzed: (1) into what basic topical categories may the statutes be broken down, (2) who are the primary users within each of those categories, and (3) how can the arrangement and development of those categories best facilitate their use by the primary users.

In developing the basic categories, an examination of the Acts of Illinois revealed that approximately one-half are laws relating primarily to the organization and administration of government: State government, counties, townships, municipalities, school districts, and special districts. Therefore, the first basic topical category is government organization and administration. Acts in this category include the Civil Administrative Code of Illinois, the State Finance Act, the Illinois Income Tax Act, the Counties Code, the School Code, and many others.

An examination of the remaining one-half of the Acts revealed that a common thread runs through those Acts. They generally deal with the protection and regulation of private individuals and entities. Acts in this general category include the Criminal Code, the Hospital Licensing Act, the Workers' Compensation Act, the Banking Act, the Vehicle Code, and many others.

Thus, the two basic topical categories are government organization and administration and public protection and regulation. The number of Acts in each category were roughly equal. There are, however, many Acts that cut across both categories. For example, the Human Rights Act contains organizational and administrative provisions for the Department of Human Rights and the Human Rights Commission; it also contains substantive provisions concerning civil rights, together with remedies for violation of those rights. Moreover, in the process of developing categories the basic distinction between government and public protection and regulation began to break down; categories suggested themselves based on other natural or historical reasons. Nevertheless, the basic distinction between government organization and administration and public was a useful guideline in developing categories and assigning Acts to those categories.

Government officers and employees and attorneys representing government are the primary, though not exclusive, users of Acts within the government organization and administration category. Private attorneys, business people, the judiciary, and private citizens are the primary, though not exclusive, users of Acts in the public protection and regulation category. The line between the primary users of each basic category, however, is not always clear. Virtually everyone may have some interest in the Acts falling within both categories. Nevertheless, keeping the primary users of each basic category in mind helped in developing categories and placing Acts within those categories.

A useful arrangement of the topical categories is one that is convenient, meaningful, logical, and functional. The categories should be developed and arranged so that a person who wants to know the law on a particular subject is generally able to find it by looking at or being familiar with the organizational scheme. The person should not have to continually resort to laborious searches through an index.

The law, however, does not always develop in a logical manner. Critical problems must be dealt with as they occur. This often results in Acts that are not easily categorized or that cross over into several categories. Thus, a useful arrangement cannot be perfect, and some searching of indices is inevitable.

Considering the distinction between Acts relating to governmental organization and administration and those relating to public protection and regulation, the groups of people who would be primarily interested in each individual Act, and the goal of producing a useful arrangement, topical chapters were created and arranged functionally within nine major topics. The major topics and chapters appear on the main ILCS page. Many chapters are further divided into topical subheads. When chapters are selected on the main ILCS page, the subheads, if any, appear on the page for those chapters. For example, the main page for Chapter 20 shows the subheads as well as the Acts in Chapter 20. In developing the arrangement of chapters and major topics, an attempt was made to satisfy the needs of the users. For example, the major topic Rights and Remedies contains those Acts that a judge or a private attorney in general practice will be using regularly. These include Acts relating to courts, arbitration, criminal offenses and procedure, corrections, civil procedure, liabilities, immunities, family law, estates, trusts, property law, liens, and human rights. In addition, other Acts used by judges and lawyers are placed nearby. The Vehicle Code, containing traffic laws and DUI provisions, is just before Rights and Remedies, and those Acts relating to business law follow Rights and Remedies.

Once the major topics, chapters, and subheads were initially developed and Acts assigned within the arrangement, everything was again examined on an Act by Act basis. The primary questions in this review were:

  1. Does the essential subject matter of the Act really fall within the chapter within which it is placed?
  2. Will a person looking for the Act naturally look in this chapter first?
  3. If the Act might logically fall within more than one chapter, which is the best from the point of view of those primarily interested in looking for and using the Act?
All of these factors, and sometimes others, were considered, but no one factor was ever given overriding priority. Instead, because the several factors often led to different results, a balancing of factors was needed; the best possible solution was sought since there was no perfect solution.

An example is the Public Construction Bond Act (30 ILCS 550/). This Act requires State officials to obtain a bond from certain State contractors. The bond is for the benefit of subcontractors, and the Act gives those subcontractors a right to sue and recover on the bond for money owing from the contractor. Two groups of people are primarily interested in this Act: the first group consists of government officials who have the responsibility of obtaining the bond from the contractor, the contractor who must furnish the bond, and attorneys representing the contractor; the second group consists of subcontractors and their attorneys who would want to recover on the bond. The first group (government officials and contractors' attorneys) would naturally look first under the subhead "purchases and contracts" in the chapter on government finance. The subcontractors' attorneys might naturally look first under the chapter on liens where other Acts allowing subcontractors to recover against contractors are found. Each position has some merit with respect to the question of where the primary users will naturally first look for the Act. The subject matter of the Act is contract bonds, not liens, however. Therefore, the subject matter does not naturally fit within liens. Moreover, it is most important that government officials are aware of the Act, find it, and obtain the bond from the contractor. If the bond is not obtained because the government official is not aware of the Act, then even though a subcontractor's attorney might easily find the Act under the chapter on liens, it does not do the attorney's client any good without a bond having been obtained. Thus, on balance, the better place for the Act was felt to be under government contracts.

The arrangement of Acts within chapters and subheads was based on three primary principles, sometimes in combination: (1) placing an anchor Act first, (2) creating functional groups, and (3) alphabetizing by the short title of the Act. An anchor Act is one that is the primary, most comprehensive Act within the topic. For example, under the subhead "common schools" within Chapter 105, Schools, the anchor Act is the School Code and it is placed first. In Chapter 745, Civil Immunities, the Acts granting immunity to governments and their employees and officials are functionally grouped together first, then the Acts relating to private immunities follow in alphabetical order.

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ILCS Numbering

In the numbering of the chapters of ILCS, each major topic has its own one hundred series and chapters are numbered in intervals of 5. For example, chapters within the Education major topic are numbered in the 100 series as 105, 110, and 115. Chapters within the Rights and Remedies major topic are numbered in the 700 series as 705, 710, 715, and so on through 775. Thus, there are open whole numbers between the initial chapters of ILCS and open numbers at the end of each one hundred series of major topics. As the need arises for new chapters, there should be room to fit the chapter into the existing ILCS arrangement in its functionally appropriate place and to designate the chapter with a whole number. Moreover, by assigning chapters within each major topic to an individual one hundred series of numbers, isolated and unfamiliar ILCS citations should nevertheless key the user to the major topic area. For example, an isolated citation to 750 ILCS 60/201 indicates a chapter in the 700 series, which is the Rights and Remedies major topic.

In the initial ILCS numbering scheme, Acts within a chapter were each given an Act prefix number sequentially throughout the chapter. For example, in Chapter 105 Schools the School Code is Act 5, the Illinois School Student Records Act is Act 10, the Surplus Federal Property for Schools Act is Act 15, and so on in intervals of 5. The Act prefix identifies the Act within the chapter and allows the ILCS numbering scheme to complete the designation of a particular Section by using the actual Section number of the Act, avoiding the problem of unrelated Section and paragraph numbers. For example, Section 17-3 of the School Code is cited as 105 ILCS 5/17-3. The chapter number is 105 (Schools), the Act prefix number is 5 (the School Code), the slash separates the Act prefix from what follows, and 17-3 corresponds exactly to the Section number of the Act. Act prefix numbers within a chapter are in intervals of 5 and gaps are left in certain places to allow for expansion. New Acts may be added to the numbering scheme using whole number Act prefixes.

Some examples of citations to ILCS and the corresponding citations to the Illinois Revised Statutes are:

(1) Section 2 of the Fiduciary Transfer of Securities Act.

(2) Section 3-106 of the Code of Civil Procedure. (3) Section 11-23-2 of the Illinois Municipal Code.

This website has a 1992 Illinois Revised Statutes to ILCS cross-reference table and ILCS to Illinois Revised Statutes cross-reference table.

Users who have become familiar with the ILCS numbering scheme are able to gain much more information from the number than was previously the case with the numbering scheme of the Illinois Revised Statutes. The chapter number indicates both the topical chapter and the major topic, the Act prefix identifies the Act within the chapter, and the ILCS citation indicates the Section number of the Act.

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