Will County, Illinois Court Records (Chicago Metropolitan Area)

Will County, one of the collar counties surrounding Chicago’s Cook county, has a population of 696,000 and is a key component of the Chicago metropolitan area. Nearby counties include Cook, DuPage, Grundy, Kane, Kankakee, Kendall, and Lake. Notable employers include Amazon, Caterpillar, and Harrah’s.

Once an industrial powerhouse, Will County still maintains a diverse economy but has increasingly become a bedroom community for Chicago. Employers in the area should expect to encounter a diverse group of people in the labor pool, a group continually refreshed by new arrivals. Some of these people may originate from other counties in the Chicago metro area. Keeping that in mind, you should create a candidate screening policy that equips you to easily analyze data from all of the surrounding counties.

A thorough pre-employment background screening procedure ensures you can search for records that match your candidate throughout the Chicago metropolitan area. Before you can begin vetting anyone, though, you must develop a policy to follow that will keep your business within the boundaries of the law. In Illinois, any private employer of 15 or more people must follow the state’s “ban the box” law. Violating this law could lead to lawsuits, fines from the state, and more. So how do you stay compliant?

The law states you must obey the following directives:

• No questions about criminal history on the job applicant. You may only ask such questions after interviewing the candidate or providing a conditional job offer. 
• You cannot take adverse action based solely on a prior conviction in someone’s criminal record. You must be able to show that there is a “substantial relationship” between the criminal record in question and the duties of the job sought to make such a dismissal.
• Take other forms of adverse action only once you’ve evaluated a candidate’s record in view of the EEOC’s “Green factors,” including how long ago the crime took place, how serious it was, and whether the applicant can demonstrate rehabilitation.

Furthermore, employers must still observe their obligations under the Fair Credit Reporting Act. These include providing a standalone disclosure of your intent to use background checks, acquiring an applicant’s written consent to the check, and using the pre-adverse and adverse action workflows to dismiss candidates. There are no known restrictions on pre-employment drug testing in Illinois or Will County.

You can begin screening candidates regularly with a clear understanding of the law and a policy in place. Begin with a thorough search that can yield results from as many Chicago metro counties as possible, such as our US OneSEARCH product. With reports made available right away using our proprietary database of criminal records, you can get a good first look at your candidate. See all our sources when you consult our coverage map.

Although most counties in the nation offer access to their records by third-party consumer reporting agencies, not all do. Will County, for example, does not. A direct search of the county courthouse may provide the ideal results for the most recent records available. Will County also provides public record access directly through the Circuit Court Clerk.

Background reports sourced from county court records may include the subject's:

• Name
• Offense/Charge
• Sentence
• Disposition

With the right approach and a smart selection of the right tools for the job, you can build a hiring and vetting process that lets you safely and capably tap into the diverse labor resources of Will County.