Choose Initial Director(s). You must choose a minimum of one director to oversee your corporation until at least the first shareholder meeting.The first step to beginning a corporation is filing your articles of incorporation. Do this with the Illinois Secretary of State. This guide will inform you of various legal requirements and direct you to additional resources. Learn about the benefits of an onboarding meeting, how to prepare an agenda, and what questions to ask new team members. To form a corporation in Illinois, one of the first legal steps you need to take is filing articles pertaining to incorporating in Illinois. Here's how to approach that first meeting. I'll walk through what you should be thinking about, some things you can say, and some questions you can ask. This document is sometimes referred to as the charter.