Family & Safety
Worried about doing this on your own? You may be able to get free legal help.
This Easy Form helps you ask the court for an Emergency Order of Protection in Cook County, Illinois. An Order of Protection orders someone to stop harming or threatening you or other household members.
You can email your forms to the court clerk and schedule a remote hearing on evenings and weekends.
After-hours court clerks and judges are available only:
- Monday to Friday: 9:00 PM through 3:00 AM, and
- Saturday and Sunday: 1:00 PM through 6:00 PM
Note: If you want to see a judge during those times, you can use this program to email forms only when After-hours court is open or in the hour before it opens. If you are filing at other times, or if you want an Order of Protection in another Illinois county, use the statewide Order of Protection Easy Form instead.
Questions? Call or text the Illinois Domestic Violence Hotline at 877-863-6338 (877-TO-END-DV).
Learn more about Orders of Protection.This program will help you make your court forms. It will ask questions for you to answer. At the end of the program, you will get completed court forms and instructions. You can save and print them, or the program can email them to you.
Form completion time: 15 minutes to 30 minutes
You will be able to save your work in the middle of the program.
The interview and forms are in English.
Can I use this program?
To use this program:
- You or the person you are filing the order against must live in Cook County,
- The abuse must have taken place in Cook County, or
- You must be living in Cook County temporarily to avoid abuse elsewhere
For a remote hearing after hours, you will need:
- An email address to communicate with the court clerk, and
- A phone or computer you can use to see the judge using Zoom. Download the Zoom app before your after-hours court hearing.
What do I need first?
To complete this program, you will need:
- Your address. If you do not want the abuser to know where you are staying, you can list an alternate address where you can receive court documents,
- Details about the abuser, such as their physical description, address, and employer, if known,
- Information about any other Orders of Protection or other court cases involving you, the other protected people, or the abuser, if known,
- Details about the abuse and when it took place,
- Details about the things you want the court to protect, such as your home, personal items, and pets, and
- Details about your things you want the court to make the abuser give back to you, or any things you have that you will return to the abuser.
If you have children with the abuser, you also need to know:
- School address information (this can be kept confidential), and
- How you want the court to restrict parenting time.
What documents will this create?
This program prepares the following forms. The forms you get will depend on your answers.
- Instructions on What's Next
- How to Ask for an Order of Protection
- Cook County Domestic Violence Cover Sheet
- Petition for Order of Protection
- Additional Case Information
- Additional Incidents of Abuse
- Emergency Order of Protection
- Order of Protection
- Summons (Protective Orders)
- Search Warrant for Seizure of Firearms
- Information Sheet for Search Warrant for Seizure of Firearms
- Confidential Protective Order Information Sheet For Sheriff's Use Only (Cook County)
- Confidential Name & Location of the School or Daycare
- Certification for Exemption from E-filing
