How to look up a court case by name

Quick answer. To look up a court case by name, first work out which court would hold it, then search that court’s own index. Federal cases, including bankruptcies and federal appeals, are on PACER, whose Case Locator searches the federal district, bankruptcy and appeals courts at once. Most cases are state cases: use the state judiciary’s online case search or ask the clerk of the county where the case was filed. Enter the name the way courts index it, last name first, with and without a middle initial, then open the docket and read how the case ended.

The name search on this page is a different tool, explained at the end.

Where a court case is kept, and how to search it

There is no national court database. Federal, state and many local courts keep separate systems, and state courts handle about 96% of all legal cases in the United States, according to the National Center for State Courts. A search that stops at PACER misses most cases.

Where a court case is kept and how to search it, by court level

Court	Typical cases	Where to search by name	Good to know
U.S. district courts	Federal crimes, lawsuits under federal law, some suits between people from different states	The PACER Case Locator, then the court’s PACER site	Billed by the page; free to view at the courthouse
U.S. bankruptcy courts	Bankruptcy cases	The PACER Case Locator	Documents from cases before 2003 aren’t on PACER
U.S. courts of appeals	Appeals from district courts and some federal agencies	The PACER Case Locator	Opinions are free
U.S. Supreme Court	Requests to review decisions of federal appeals courts and state high courts	The Court’s own docket search	Not on PACER; full dockets from the 2001 Term on
State supreme and appeals courts	Appeals from state trial courts	The judiciary’s appellate case search	Sometimes in the statewide portal
State trial courts	Felonies, misdemeanors, lawsuits, evictions, small claims; in many states, family and probate cases	The statewide portal if there is one; otherwise the county clerk	Some files are only at the courthouse
Municipal and traffic courts	Traffic tickets, ordinance violations, minor offenses	The local court’s website or clerk	Many post little online
Probate courts	Wills, estates, guardianships	The probate court or clerk, often by the name of the person who died	Some states keep guardianship files offline
Family and juvenile courts	Divorce, custody, support, protection orders, adoption, juvenile cases	The court’s clerk	Adoption and juvenile files are generally confidential

Not sure which court? Search the PACER Case Locator, then the county where the person lived, worked or owned property, or where the events happened. For deeds, licenses and other records, see what you can find in public records.

Federal court records: PACER and free alternatives

PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records) is the federal courts’ online records service.

Search by name with the PACER Case Locator

The PACER Case Locator searches a nationwide index of federal cases. You need a free PACER account; PACER says a credit card gets you in right away, and without one an activation code comes by mail. Enter a last name, required if you fill in a first name, and narrow by party role, court type, region or dates. The national index is refreshed once a day; each court’s own PACER site updates as documents are filed.

What PACER costs

As of October 2026, PACER charges 10 cents a page, capped at $3 a document. The cap doesn’t cover transcripts, search results or reports that aren’t about one case, and a search is billed even when it finds nothing. Fees are waived if you spend $30 or less in a quarter. PACER has announced that from January 1, 2027, the rate rises to 12 cents a page for five years and the free threshold to $40 a quarter.

Free ways to read federal records

• Opinions. PACER says court opinions are always free; GovInfo carries searchable opinions from more than 130 federal courts back to April 2004.
• Courthouse terminals. Records can be viewed free at the courthouse, uscourts.gov says; printing costs 10 cents a page.
• Fee exemptions. Courts may exempt people who can’t afford the fees, and groups such as researchers and nonprofits, on request.
• The RECAP Archive. RECAP, a free browser extension from the nonprofit Free Law Project, saves dockets and documents its users buy on PACER to an archive on CourtListener and shows you any free copy. It holds only what users have added.

State and county court records

Find the state’s own case search

Each state judiciary runs its own website; look for “case search,” “online services” or “court records.” USA.gov’s courts page points to the Justice Department Library’s directory of state and federal court resources, which lists each state’s courts.

Statewide portal or county clerk

Some states search every county at once, as Minnesota Court Records Online does; Pennsylvania’s free portal includes appellate, criminal and magisterial district court cases, traffic included. Others leave it to each county. Texas has no single database covering every court in the state, the Texas State Law Library notes; district and county clerks keep separate records, and only some counties have their own online search.

What’s online and what’s only at the courthouse

A portal shows less than the courthouse. In divorce, custody, civil harassment and criminal cases, California’s courts may put only indexes, calendars and the register of actions online. Minnesota’s portal leaves out child protection cases and parties’ street addresses, among others, and says not every public record on courthouse terminals is online. Massachusetts’ guide to its trial court site lists name searches for civil cases only. When a portal shows nothing, ask the clerk; North Carolina, for one, has criminal case terminals in every county clerk’s office.

Requesting copies

Ask the clerk of the court where the case was filed, giving the case number, the parties’ names and the documents you want. Copies usually carry a fee; ask for a certified copy if you need to prove something to a court or an agency.

How to search for a court case by name

Indexes match the name as a clerk typed it, so try every way it could have been entered.

• Last name first. Use the separate name fields; start with the last name and a first initial, then narrow.
• Middle names and suffixes. Search with and without the middle initial and Jr., Sr. or III.
• Variants. Try nicknames such as Bill for William, each part of a hyphenated surname, and likely misspellings.
• Former names. Search maiden and earlier legal names for the years each was used; the maiden name search guide shows how to find them.
• Role and case type. Filter for plaintiff, defendant or debtor, and for civil, criminal, family or probate cases, where the search allows it.
• Dates and place. Limit the search to the years the person lived in the county, then try neighboring counties; cases are usually filed where the events happened.
• Businesses. Search the person’s company too; a landlord or contractor may be sued under a business name.

When you find a case, note the court and the case number. Use the case number together with the court and jurisdiction; a number alone is not unique across all courts.

When the case doesn’t show up

A miss proves little. The case may be in another court, the name may have been entered differently, the court may not put that kind of case online, or the case may be too new for the index or old enough to be on paper only, like most federal cases opened before 1999. Some portals also filter: Minnesota’s says pending criminal, traffic and petty misdemeanor cases without a conviction come up by case number, not by the defendant’s name. Or the record is sealed, expunged or confidential by law.

If it matters, call the clerk with the name, rough dates and the kind of case; clerks can say whether a public file exists.

Sealed, expunged and confidential records

Most adult cases are public, but some records are closed by court order or by law.

Sealed

A judge has closed the case or a document to the public; the file still exists.

Expunged

The record has been erased or closed under a state law for clearing old cases; states define “expunge” and “seal” differently and set their own eligibility rules.

Juvenile and adoption

Generally confidential.

Family, protection orders and mental health

Often limited online. Minnesota’s portal omits domestic abuse and harassment restraining order cases, citing the federal Violence Against Women Act, and California limits remote access to mental health, guardianship and conservatorship records.

Parts of federal files

PACER’s help pages say documents in Social Security and immigration cases, criminal documents filed before November 1, 2004, and documents from bankruptcy cases before 2003 aren’t public on PACER.

Copies of sealed or expunged cases can linger on websites that collected them earlier; repeating them is unfair to someone the law has let move on. If the record is yours, ask the court clerk for a copy of the sealing or expungement order and send it to any site or screening company that still shows the case. To see what comes up under your name first, check yourself.

How to read a court record

The docket and the case documents

The docket, also called the docket sheet, case summary or register of actions, is the case’s running log: one dated line for each filing, hearing and order. The documents are the filings themselves, from the complaint or charging document to the judgment. Federal courts describe the case file as the docket sheet plus all documents filed in the case. Many online searches show only the docket; documents may cost extra or be available only at the courthouse.

What each part tells you

• Case number. In a federal number such as 2:25-cv-00417, 2 is the court’s office or division, 25 the year filed, cv civil (cr is criminal) and 00417 the sequence number; the judge’s initials may follow. States use their own formats.
• Filing date. When the case began, not when anything was decided.
• Nature of suit. In federal civil cases, a category the filer picks on the civil cover sheet, such as “190 Other Contract.” It describes the claim, not the result.
• Parties. A plaintiff or petitioner started the case; a defendant or respondent answers it.
• Disposition and later entries. How each count or claim ended, or that it’s pending, then anything later: an appeal, a paid judgment, an order sealing or expunging the case.

Charges aren’t convictions, and lawsuits aren’t judgments

A criminal charge is an accusation. A case can end in dismissal, acquittal, a diversion program, a plea to a lesser charge or a conviction on some counts only, so read the disposition of each count. A case dismissed “with prejudice” can’t be refiled; one dismissed “without prejudice” can.

A civil filing only means someone made a claim. Look for the ending: dismissed, settled, a judgment for one side, or a default judgment because the defendant never answered. If no outcome shows, the case may still be open or the result not yet posted; the clerk can tell you which.

Make sure it’s the same person

A name match isn’t a person match, and court files carry few identifiers by design. Under Fed. R. Civ. P. 5.2, a federal filing may show only the last four digits of a Social Security or taxpayer number, the year of birth, a minor’s initials and the last four digits of a financial account; Fed. R. Crim. P. 49.1 limits a home address in a criminal filing to the city and state. Minnesota’s portal warns that “two or more people can have the same name and birth date” and that parties use aliases, including the names of others.

Before linking a case to someone, read the original file and compare its dates, identifiers and parties with what you already know. Keep any conflict unresolved rather than relying on a fixed number of matches. Copies of one detail count once; a name alone leaves the match unresolved. The guide to checking that a record belongs to the right person covers harder cases.

Worked example: one name, three cases

You’re about to rent from a landlord named Jordan Example. The county’s court index for “Example, Jordan” returns three cases.

• Small claims, a former tenant against Jordan Example. It gives your building’s address and names the company on your lease as a co-defendant: two details agree. The tenant won a deposit judgment, later paid.
• A debt suit against Jordan A. Example, with an out-of-state address and nothing you recognize. Unresolved.
• A divorce case, index only. Irrelevant to renting; leave it alone.

Ask the landlord about the first case; the second proves nothing about them.

Before you rely on a court record

• The court fits the person’s history: where they lived or worked, or where the events happened
• The original file’s dates and identifiers fit the person’s history; copied or conflicting details have not been treated as confirmation
• You read the docket to the latest entry, not just the caption or a summary
• You know the outcome, and checked for an appeal, a paid judgment or an order sealing or expunging the case
• You treat charges and claims as allegations unless the record shows a conviction or judgment
• You confirmed anything important with the court, with a certified copy if you need proof
• Your purpose isn’t a hiring, rental, lending or insurance decision
• You won’t use the case to contact, shame or follow anyone

What you can and can’t use court records for

Reading a public case file is lawful, and so is looking up someone you’re about to meet or rent a home from for your own use. The rules change when a record helps decide whether someone gets a job, a home, credit or insurance.

A background report used to decide on a job, housing, credit or insurance is a consumer report under the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Employers must give a stand-alone written notice, get written permission and, before rejecting someone over the report, send a copy with a summary of rights, the FTC’s guidance for employers explains; landlords owe an adverse action notice. Use an FCRA-compliant screening company; the CFPB keeps a list of consumer reporting companies, employment and tenant screeners included.

The FCRA also generally keeps civil suits, civil judgments and arrests older than seven years out of screening reports, though not convictions; federal exceptions include certain employment reports for jobs expected to pay at least $75,000 a year (15 U.S.C. § 1681c). Some states and cities regulate how background information, criminal history included, is used in hiring, the EEOC notes. What a background check shows compares screening reports with personal research.

Whatever the purpose, don’t use a case to track down, shame or publicize a party, a witness or a victim; stalking and harassment laws apply to what you do with a result, as whether people search is legal explains.

What a Recordwell name search adds

The search box at the top of this page isn’t a court portal. It takes a first and last name, and a report organizes lawfully available records and open web information found under that name: places connected to it over time, matters filed publicly, business registrations and professional licenses, and publicly visible profiles and mentions.

In a report, a matter filed publicly under the name appears with the details the filing carries, such as the court, the filing date and the case number, and stays with the candidate it appears to belong to. People who share a name are kept apart, and possible matches still need review against the original court record; no fixed number of matching fields establishes identity. Coverage varies by court and many courts publish little online, so an empty section isn’t proof that no case exists; the record the court keeps settles it.

Used that way, a report can point you to a court and a case number, and help keep a namesake’s case off the wrong person. See how a people search works for the rest of the report. Full reports require a paid plan, including when searching your own name. Removing your own information is free. Recordwell isn’t a consumer reporting agency, so nothing in a report may be used for employment, tenant screening, credit or insurance, as the FCRA notice explains.

Search by first and last name