Too many family law attorneys treat trial like a school project—summarize the facts, cite the law, hand it to the judge like a term paper. But Illinois divorce trials don’t grade on neatness and organization. Illinois trials require evidence, foundation, and admissibility. Evidence must be admitted consistent with the Illinois rules of evidence. Every little item you want the court to take notice of must be properly admitted which requires laying foundation and establishing authentication while being free from evidentiary objections (or subject to an exception to an objection). In a divorce, if the marital estate includes assets and sources of income beyond the usual set of issues: house, 401k and W2s the process of admitting evidence can become overly tedious for everyone…especially the judge. Beyond creating a balance sheet of a multitude of accounts, assets and debts, divorce cases can involve complicated dissipation allegations, commingling and tracing of marital or non-marital contributions. The more detailed the case, the more likely it is that the divorce judge will allow a summary of the evidence in lieu of individual admission of each piece of original evidence. Getting Exhibits Into Evidence In An Illinois Divorce Trial Financials rarely come into evidence via testimony alone. For the court to adequately tabulate who owns or owes what, the court needs exhibits which are almost writings. ““Writings” and “recordings” consist of letters, words, sounds, or numbers, or their equivalent, set down by handwriting, typewriting, printing, photostating, photographing, magnetic impulse, mechanical or electronic recording, or other form of data compilation.” Ill. R. Evid. 1001(1) Ideally, the writing observed will be an original. “To prove the content of a writing, recording, or photograph, the original writing, recording, or photograph is required, except as otherwise provided in these rules or by statute.” Ill. R. Evid. 1002 Duplicates are perfectly okay so long as they are truly exact copies. “A duplicate is admissible to the same extent as an original unless (1) a genuine question is raised as to the authenticity of the original or (2) in the circumstances it would be unfair to admit the duplicate in lieu of the original.” Ill. R. Evid. 1003 The problem is when there are dozens to thousands of documents for the court to consider. This process of introducing each individual document becomes untenable. In situations with “voluminous documents” the courts can allow summaries in lieu of actual admission of the underlying […]
