For more than a century, my family has run a manufacturing company in Illinois. Atlas Tool Works has weathered recessions, global competition, supply chain shocks, and every kind of business cycle imaginable. But the challenge that has become more prominent in recent years is the one that spawns in Illinois’ own court system.
This year, Illinois once again landed on the Judicial Hellholes® list. Cook County, joined by Madison and St. Clair counties, was ranked the 7th-worst legal environment in the nation. For business owners like me, this is not a surprise. It is the predictable result of a legal climate that has drifted far from fairness and increasingly rewards litigation tourism, jackpot verdicts, and lawsuits engineered not to deliver justice but to shake down small businesses.
Cook County has long been the epicenter of this problem. Residents here now pay an annual “tort tax” of $2,158, the result of excessive litigation costs that also wipe out nearly 160,000 jobs every year. That’s $8,632 a year for a family of four! That’s money that could otherwise go toward mortgage payments, tuition, or groceries. For a state already struggling to retain workers and employers, these numbers should set off alarm bells throughout the halls in Springfield.
The problem doesn’t stop at the Chicago city line. Downstate, Madison and St. Clair counties continue to draw lawsuits from across the country thanks to their reputations for nuclear verdicts, plaintiff-friendly rulings, and a willingness to entertain questionable claims with no real connection to Illinois. Combined, these counties impose a $1,027 annual tort tax on their residents and costs nearly 6,000 jobs a year.
And the trend is getting worse. A newly enacted jurisdiction-expansion law now allows even more out-of-state litigants to file cases in Illinois courts. Rather than protecting residents, the legislature has opened the door to a flood of lawsuits that will stretch our courts even thinner and increase the pressure on employers who already face enormous legal exposure.
Meanwhile, an explosion of claims, from GIPA lawsuits and food-and-beverage class actions to baseless cases targeting manufacturers of life-sustaining baby formula, has turned Illinois into a testing ground for aggressive litigation strategies that often rely on junk science rather than evidence.
The economic consequences are detrimental. Lawsuit abuse drives up prices for consumers, deters investment, and weakens Illinois’ competitiveness on the national playing field. When businesses must budget for legal risk instead of job growth, the entire community feels the impact. You do not need to own a manufacturing company to understand the impact. It shows up in your utility bills, grocery receipts, and insurance premiums. It shows up in fewer job postings. It shows up in the steady exodus of companies choosing to build their futures somewhere else.
If you want proof of how lucrative Illinois’ broken system has become, look at where the money is going. Over just 18 months, trial lawyers spent more than $110 million on aggressive advertising across these three counties. This is more than a million ads blanketing TV, radio, print, digital platforms, and even billboards. They are investing heavily because the system works for them. The question is whether it works for everyone else.
Illinois has been named a Judicial Hellhole® for nearly a quarter-century. The reason for the persistent inaction from Springfield can likely be explained by the millions of dollars the Trial Bar funnels into candidates’ coffers. Lawmakers are apparently complicit in letting businesses continue to suffer, as long as they are getting a piece of the multi-millions in attorney fees and settlements that in-state and out-of-state law firms reap from the Illinois Businesses.
Why try to fix a broken system that funds your reelection campaigns?
Illinoisans deserve a legal environment that encourages manufacturers, startups, and job creators to grow here, not one that pushes them across state lines. And we need lawmakers and judges who recognize that a strong economy cannot coexist with courts that invite excess litigation. If we want a state that attracts opportunity instead of repelling it, reforming our civil justice system is not optional; it is essential.
