Every DuPage County Divorce Is Heard in the Same Building
Whether you live in Wheaton, Darien, Bensenville or a subdivision that straddles two townships, your case is filed in the Eighteenth Judicial Circuit and heard at the DuPage County Judicial Center, 505 N. County Farm Road in Wheaton. Same courthouse, same bench, same local rules. Where you live inside the county changes the drive. It does not change the case.
Kulerski & Cornelison is a divorce and family law firm in Oakbrook Terrace, near the middle of the county and a short drive from the courthouse in Wheaton. Kari L. Cornelison has practiced Illinois family law since 1996. She works as a mediator, a collaborative lawyer or a litigator depending on what the case in front of her actually needs, and most of the time that means keeping it out of a courtroom.
We Represent Clients From Every Community in the County
Our clients come from every part of the county, from Bensenville and Elmhurst in the north to Darien and Burr Ridge in the south. A DuPage address is a DuPage case, and all of them are heard in the same building in Wheaton.
Clients regularly come to us from:
How a DuPage Case Actually Moves
Illinois has been a no-fault state since 2016. Irreconcilable differences is the only ground, and under 750 ILCS 5/401(a-5) living separate and apart for six months establishes it conclusively. A petition is filed and served, financial disclosure follows the circuit’s local rules, and temporary orders for support or parenting time can be entered while the case is pending.
The provisions that decide most cases:
Parenting Plans
Where there are children, a parenting plan is due within 120 days of service. Parental responsibilities and parenting time are allocated under 750 ILCS 5/602.5 and 602.7, and decision-making over education, healthcare, religion and activities can be shared or split by subject.
Child Support
Calculated on the income shares model in 750 ILCS 5/505, using both parents’ net incomes and the overnight count, with a shared parenting adjustment once each parent has at least 146 overnights.
Spousal Maintenance
The guideline formula in 750 ILCS 5/504 applies to couples below the combined income threshold. Above it, or where a court departs from the guideline, the reasons go on the record.
Property Division
Marital property is divided equitably under 750 ILCS 5/503, which is not the same standard as equally, and non-marital property does not always stay non-marital after years in a joint account.
How It Ends
An agreed case ends at a prove-up in Wheaton, which is usually short. A contested one ends at trial, which is not. Most of the distance between those two outcomes is decided in the first few weeks.
None of that changes based on which DuPage town you live in. It changes based on the facts and on how early the case gets organized.
DuPage Communities We Serve
These are the towns we are asked about most often. Each one brings its own wrinkles, from school district boundaries that complicate a parenting schedule to home values that change what an equitable split looks like.
Where to Start
The earliest choices in a divorce shape everything downstream, and most of them get made before anyone has taken legal advice. A single conversation now is usually the cheapest hour of the whole case.
When a Town Crosses a County Line
A handful of DuPage communities do not stop at the county border, and that detail decides which courthouse hears the case. Under 750 ILCS 5/104, a dissolution is filed in the county where either spouse resides.
Naperville extends into Will County, where cases are heard in Joliet in the Twelfth Judicial Circuit
Woodridge reaches into both Will and Cook
Sections of Burr Ridge, Hinsdale and Bensenville sit in Cook County, where domestic relations matters are heard downtown at the Daley Center
A spouse who has already moved out may have changed the available venue without meaning to
Venue can be waived by not objecting in time, and occasionally the courthouse you could object to is the one you would rather be in
We work this out at the start, before a filing locks it in.
Questions We Get About Geography
Four come up more than the rest.
Does it matter which DuPage town I live in?
For the law, almost not at all. What your town changes is practical: how far you drive to a status date, which school district a parenting plan has to work around, and sometimes the value of the marital home, since a house in Hinsdale and a house in Glendale Heights are not the same negotiation even when the mortgage balance matches.
Do you take cases from towns you have not named?
Yes. We represent people from every community in DuPage County, including the unincorporated pockets that carry a village mailing address and have no village government of their own. Where you live inside the county has never been the thing that decides whether we can take a case.
My spouse moved to another county. Where does the case go?
Either county may be proper, because venue under 750 ILCS 5/104 follows the residence of either party, and the first spouse to file usually sets it. If your spouse has moved to Will, Kane or Cook County and files there, the case is heard there unless venue is successfully challenged, and that objection has to be raised early.
Do I have to come to the office?
Not for most of it. Consultations, mediation sessions, document review and settlement negotiation all work by phone and video, and many clients handle the whole matter that way apart from the court dates that require an appearance.
Anything else about where your case belongs is usually a two minute phone call.
Where the Office Is, and Why It Matters Less Than You Think
Our office is at 1S660 Midwest Road in Oakbrook Terrace, which puts most of DuPage County within about half an hour. There is a second office at 47 W Polk Street in Chicago for clients on that side of the line. Much of the work does not require you to come to either one.
Meet Attorney Kari L. Cornelison
Kari has practiced family law in the Chicago area since 1996. She is a court-certified mediator, a trained collaborative practitioner and a divorce litigator with years of trial work in the DuPage and Cook County courts. The combination is deliberate. An attorney who only ever settles cannot value a case accurately, and one who only ever litigates reaches for the courtroom first. Having done both, she can tell a client what a judge in Wheaton is likely to do with a given set of facts, and then leave the decision with the person whose life it is.
What Our Clients Say
“Kari made a stressful process easier to manage. She explained everything clearly and always kept my family’s needs first.”
Contact Our DuPage County Family Law Office
Whether you are still weighing the decision or your spouse has already filed, the choices made early shape the ones left later. Call our Oakbrook Terrace office at (630) 928-0600 or send us a message to arrange a consultation.
