Highlights
Impacted Employers: Illinois employers with more than 25 employees
Effective Date: January 1, 2027
Summary: Illinois has enacted legislation that will require employers with more than 25 employees to provide paid jury duty leave.
Next Steps: Covered employers should review and update:
- Jury duty leave and pay policies.
- Supervisor guidance relating to jury service absences.
- Anti-retaliation policies concerning jury service.
More detailed next steps can be found below.
The Details
Background
Under existing state law, all employers must:
- Give employees time off to serve on a summoned jury.
- Permit jury service regardless of the employee's work shift.
- Not require a night-shift employee to work while serving on daytime jury duty.
To be entitled to jury-duty leave under the law, the employee must:
- Be duly summoned for jury service.
- Provide the employer with reasonable notice of required jury service.
The law defines "reasonable notice" as providing the employer with a copy of the jury summons within 10 days after the summons is issued to the employee.
The law also prohibits all employers from retaliating against an employee because of jury service.
What Changed?
Effective Jan. 1, 2027, employers with more than 25 employees must provide paid jury duty leave by paying employees their regular rate of pay for time spent serving on jury duty. Employers with 25 or fewer employees aren’t subject to this requirement.
Next Steps
Covered employers should:
- Budget for paid jury-duty absences.
- Update payroll processes to pay employees their regular rate for jury-duty service.
- Revise jury-duty leave policies.
- Review employee handbooks and leave policies for consistency with the new paid jury-duty requirement.
- Clarify employee notice procedures and include the requirement that employees provide a copy of the summons within 10 days of issuance.
- Reinforce anti-retaliation requirements.
- Ensure managers understand that employees must be allowed time off for jury service.
- Ensure night-shift employees are not required to work while serving daytime jury duty.