Answer: A Status court date (also known as a Progress Call) is when the case is called in open court and the attorneys are required to advise the court as to the progress of the case thus far.
The court selects the dates of these appearances and the first such Status date (depending upon the county) usually occurs four months after the case is filed.
It is not necessary for clients to be present on these court dates. The court merely wants to know what the attorneys are doing to move the case along and whether they need the court’s help in making things move more quickly. For local cases, your status date will be heard at the DuPage County Judicial Center, and our Wheaton divorce attorneys appear there regularly on behalf of our clients.
The court usually inquires about any new issues that may have arisen in the case, how the discovery is progressing, if the happenings of the case are relatively on time, what the attorneys need to prepare for trial, and what special orders the court can enter to help to facilitate their preparedness.
If the court sees that the attorneys are trying their best to gather what they need for trial, it may set additional status dates to keep the pressure on and help to keep things on track. A status date is not the same thing as a pre-trial conference, which is where the judge and attorneys dig into unresolved issues to explore settlement options. At the final status date, the court will officially set the matter for this pre-trial conference—the last stop before trial.
If you have a status date coming up and are not sure what is expected of you, our DuPage County divorce attorneys can walk you through it. We appear in this courthouse constantly, including for clients going through divorce in Downers Grove and across the western suburbs.