[1] To carry out these duties in the appellate courts of the state, the Office has district offices in each of the five appellate court districts of Illinois – Chicago, Elgin, Mt.
The OSAD administrative office is located in Springfield, the state capital.
[1] In 1986, the American Bar Association honored OSAD as the outstanding public defender office of the United States.
[1] The Office of the Illinois State Appellate Defender came under severe criticism in the late 2010s for the lengthy queue required for clients - most of them persons convicted of felonies and subject to imprisonment - to get their cases actively taken up by OSAD.
In March 2022, the Office told a legislative committee that this backlog had been reduced to fewer than 500 cases.