About Court Reference

Finding court records can be a complicated process for anyone who is not familiar with how courts are organized in the state or locality being researched. Even professionals who are experts in one state may find courts in other states to be structured in a manner very unfamiliar to them.

Effective searching of court records requires that the person doing the research first know what types of court case records are being sought, and then be able to identify which courts handle that type of case. For example, criminal records are usually found in different courts depending on the seriousness of the charge.

CourtReference.com was created to assist you in identifying which courts handle different types of cases in each state, and then to provide information on how to get those records. In many cases, our database provides links to online free court searches provided by the courts or state agencies. Since there is often no online search option ( free or otherwise ), we have also provided links to each court's website, where available, and address and telephone number for each court.

The site is organized by state; for each state we have a page dedicated to each of the following categories:

Looking for other types of public records? Try a Free Public Records Directory.