Court records are the official files of cases heard by federal, state, and county courts — including civil suits, criminal cases, bankruptcies, and judgments. Most can be searched online for free through official judiciary portals, with federal cases available through PACER and state cases through each state's court website.
Last Updated: June 2026 · Reviewed quarterly by the Searchadex editorial team.
A court record is the documentary history of a legal proceeding. It includes the docket (a chronological list of filings and rulings), the names of the parties, the case number, charges or claims, and the disposition. Court records are presumptively public under the common-law right of access and the First Amendment, with narrow exceptions for sealed, juvenile, and confidential matters.
Jurisdiction determines where a case lives. Federal cases — bankruptcy, federal crimes, civil rights, patent and antitrust suits — are filed in U.S. District, Bankruptcy, and Appellate courts and indexed in PACER. State and county cases — most criminal, family, probate, and small-claims matters — sit in each state's trial-court system.
There is no single nationwide court-record search. The federal judiciary runs PACER for its courts, and each state runs its own case-search system, ranging from unified statewide portals to county-by-county clerk websites.
Federal court access is uniform nationwide through PACER. State-level online access varies from fully unified portals to county-only systems. The table summarizes statewide trial-court access for the 15 largest states.
| State | Free Online? | Official Portal | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| California | Partial | County Superior Court portals | No unified statewide search; each Superior Court runs its own case portal. |
| Texas | Partial | re:SearchTX + county district clerk sites | Statewide re:SearchTX exists; full access often via county clerks. |
| Florida | Yes | Clerk of Court county portals + flcourts.gov | Most county clerks offer free online case search. |
| New York | Yes | NYSCEF + WebCivil Supreme | Free statewide e-filing and civil case search via NYSCEF. |
| Pennsylvania | Yes | UJS Portal (ujsportal.pacourts.us) | Unified Judicial System portal offers free statewide docket search. |
| Illinois | Partial | County Circuit Clerk portals | No single statewide portal; Cook County and others run their own. |
| Ohio | Yes | County Clerk of Courts sites | Most county clerks publish free online dockets. |
| Georgia | Partial | Georgia Courts + county Superior Court clerks | Access is largely county-by-county; some use PeachCourt. |
| North Carolina | Yes | NC eCourts (Odyssey Portal) | Statewide eCourts portal rolling out free public search. |
| Michigan | Partial | County circuit/district court sites | No unified statewide portal; access varies by county. |
| New Jersey | Yes | NJ Courts eCourts / ACMS | Free statewide civil and criminal case lookup via NJ Courts. |
| Virginia | Yes | Virginia Judiciary Online Case Information | Free statewide circuit and district court case search. |
| Washington | Yes | Washington Courts Search Case Records | Free statewide name and case-number search. |
| Arizona | Yes | Arizona Judicial Branch Public Access | Free statewide case search covering most courts. |
| Tennessee | Partial | County Clerk of Court sites | No unified statewide portal; access by county. |
Yes. Federal cases are searchable through PACER (with fees waived under $30 per quarter), and most states offer free online case search through their judiciary or county clerk websites.
PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records) is the federal judiciary's official case-search system. Registration is free, and viewing fees are waived if you accrue less than $30 in a calendar quarter.
Most are, but exceptions exist. Juvenile, sealed, expunged, adoption, and certain family-court records are restricted by law and not available in public search systems.
Use your state judiciary's case-search portal if it has one, or the county clerk of court where the case was filed. Search by party name or case number.
Court records show case-by-case outcomes, not a compiled criminal history. A full background check requires a separate statewide criminal-history or FCRA-compliant search.
Often yes. Many portals let you download filed documents, sometimes for a small per-page fee. PACER charges $0.10 per page, capped at $3 per document.
Official portals are perfect for verifying a single record. When you need compiled reports — combined people search, contact data, or multi-source background information — these professional lookup tools go further. They are paid services, not government sources.
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