When does Illinois’s two-year attorney malpractice discovery period expire?

Identify the attorney’s professional services or the nonattorney employee’s covered assistance within employment.

Establish actual or reasonable injury knowledge and the alleged act or omission date separately.

Check whether injury first occurs at client death, whether disability applies and whether services preceded January 1, 2022.

1. Identify the attorney’s professional services or the nonattorney employee’s covered assistance within employment.
2. Measure two calendar years from established actual or reasonable injury knowledge. The preset does not compare six years from the professional act or resolve the client-death and disability branches.
3. Check the final weekend, statutory holiday and the proper court’s actual calendar.
4. Commence the covered professional-services action and preserve the service, injury and knowledge chronology. Retain probate, letters and disability records when those special branches may apply.

Section 1.11 excludes a final Saturday, Sunday or statutory holiday and consecutive excluded days. Section 17(a) of the Promissory Note and Bank Holiday Act includes Pulaski Day, Good Friday and the general election for members of the House of Representatives. Check proclamations, the proper court’s actual calendar and clerk access separately. The bundled Illinois calendar covers 2026 and 2027.

Fictitious example

Use the ordinary professional-injury discovery component. Compare the act-based six-year provision and investigate client-death, disability and the January 1, 2022 transition before treating the result as a final filing date. Fictitious statutory event, independently established under the precise scope stated in this guide. Use the ordinary professional-injury discovery component. Compare the act-based six-year provision and investigate client-death, disability and the January 1, 2022 transition before treating the result as a final filing date.

Fictitious covered professional-services claim with independently established injury knowledge and a later six-year component. This does not resolve client-death, disability or historical-transition facts.

Covered employees and services must be identified

Subsections (a) and (b) include an attorney’s nonattorney employees for the stated assistance in professional services within the scope of employment. The rule is not triggered merely by any interaction with a lawyer.

Six years from the act is a separate component

Subsection (c), except as provided in (d), measures six years from the act or omission. A later discovery output does not automatically override the applicable act-based period.

Injury first occurring at client death has special rules

Subsection (d) addresses injury not occurring until death, its two-year death period and the stated estate-claim or will-contest alternatives when letters issue or the will is probated. It also states the six-year professional-services qualification.

Disability depends on when it exists

Subsection (e) addresses minority or other legal disability at accrual. Subsection (f) addresses later disability, states the repose qualification and identifies its application to pending or later actions.

The 2022 transition can affect older services

Subsection (g) applies the amendment broadly but preserves the stated reasonable time for pre-effective-date services timely under the January 1, 2021 version, with its six-year-after-effective-date limit. Establish those facts separately.

• This calculation does not determine whether relief is available or whether the facts satisfy the statute.
• A current statutory edition does not establish the law for every historical claim. Preserve the applicable edition and actual orders.

• Identify the attorney’s professional services or the nonattorney employee’s covered assistance within employment.
• Establish actual or reasonable injury knowledge and the alleged act or omission date separately.
• Check whether injury first occurs at client death, whether disability applies and whether services preceded January 1, 2022.
• Subsections (a) and (b) include an attorney’s nonattorney employees for the stated assistance in professional services within the scope of employment. The rule is not triggered merely by any interaction with a lawyer.
• Subsection (c), except as provided in (d), measures six years from the act or omission. A later discovery output does not automatically override the applicable act-based period.
• Subsection (d) addresses injury not occurring until death, its two-year death period and the stated estate-claim or will-contest alternatives when letters issue or the will is probated. It also states the six-year professional-services qualification.
• Subsection (e) addresses minority or other legal disability at accrual. Subsection (f) addresses later disability, states the repose qualification and identifies its application to pending or later actions.
• Subsection (g) applies the amendment broadly but preserves the stated reasonable time for pre-effective-date services timely under the January 1, 2021 version, with its six-year-after-effective-date limit. Establish those facts separately.
• Commence the covered professional-services action and preserve the service, injury and knowledge chronology. Retain probate, letters and disability records when those special branches may apply. File with the proper clerk in the required format. Rule 9 ordinarily requires civil electronic filing, subject to its exceptions and exemptions. Rule 9(f) ordinarily requires submission before midnight in the court time zone unless a statute, rule or actual order specifies a different time. A submission on a closed clerk day ordinarily receives the next open-day stamp. Preserve the actual electronic file mark, receipt and any filing-relief order. Filing and service are distinct acts.