Ask a Law Librarian: FAQ's about Legal Research

There are different places to look at court records online depending on what you want to see.

You can see appearance dates for active cases in local Civil Courts, Supreme Court, Criminal Court, and Family Court using eCourts.

• The WebCivil Local search covers city courts, district courts, and NYC Civil Court.
  • You can search by the name of a party to the case or index number.
  • You can also see records for older cases that are disposed (decided), other than Landlord-Tenant cases, which leave eCourts no more than 2 weeks after they've been decided.
• The WebCivil Supreme search covers the 62 county Supreme Courts.
  • You can search by the name of a party to the case or index number.
  • A case will not appear in this search unless the plaintiff has filed the Request for Judicial Intervention form, which is what assigns a case to a judge.
• The WebCriminal search covers many of the state's lower criminal courts; you can see the full list here.
  • You can search by summons/case number or the defendant's name.
  • The first page of results will show the arrest date, lawyer information, and the next appearance date.
  • You can also click in to see a summary of the defendant's appearances, the arrest charges, and any motions in the case in the Case Details box on the lefthand side.
• The WebFamily search covers the state's 62 county family courts, as well as family court cases in Integrated Domestic Violence Courts.
  • You must know both the court where the case is assigned AND the family file number or docket number to look up an appearance date.

You can only search on cases in eCourts if you know the parties or index number. There is not a way to search for cases by topic or statute. 

You can see filings for many cases filed in Supreme Court and some local courts using the New York State Courts Electronic Filing (NYSCEF) website, but only if the case was filed electronically. 

• You can only see filings for cases filed electronically in courts that have been approved to use NYSCEF. You can check the list of authorized courts and case types here.
• You can search for a case by the index number or party name. 
• Filings for certain types of cases, such as divorce cases and cases involving the Mental Hygiene Law, are considered confidential and cannot be viewed on NYSCEF.

You can see filings for estate cases using WebSurrogates.

• You can search by name of the deceased or estate file number, but you must know the county where the estate proceeding was filed to run the search.
• Different counties have digitized their estate files back to different dates, so depending on the age of the record, it may or may not be available to view online. 
• Counties that have digitized their index books also have an index search available.

Older case records are available in different places depending on the type of case you're looking for.

• Cases filed in a county's Supreme Court are held by the county clerk's office, and you can request that the clerk do a search for you.
  • Some counties have an online request form you can submit, and others require you send in a paper request. Check your county clerk's website to find the procedure.
  • Divorce records can only be accessed by the parties named in the case or their attorneys. All other requestors need a court order.
• Cases filed in City Court, District Court, and Town & Village Court are held by the court, and you will need to work with the court to access case files.
• Cases filed in Family Court are held by the court, and you will need to work with the court to access case files. 
  • Many Family Court proceedings are confidential, and may not be available to you.
• Cases filed in Surrogate's Court are held by the court, and you will need to work with the court to access case files. 
• You may also be able to access older court records through the New York State Archives. 

If you want to find court cases on particular topics, you will have to use legal resource materials such as annotated statutes, digests, and treatises. This will require a visit to a public access law library. You can find the public access law library location closest to you here.

Court records are the papers filed in a case; a court decision is the ruling by the judge. When looking for a case, it is important to know that few cases are "published." Published means the judge's decision is printed in a legal reporter and indexed by case name and topic. Most appealed cases get published, but few low-level court cases are published. 

New York State has an official reporter for court cases. The New York State Law Reporting Bureau's selection of trial court cases means that New York state legal researchers can find trial court cases, unlike most states.  Cases since 1956 can be searched by word, party name and citation on the New York Official Reports Service page. 

If you have the party names of an old case, it may be possible to find the citation through the West 1st and 2nd Digests Table of Cases volumes. The online legal research services, Westlaw and Lexis, do not include these old cases in their electronic databases. The nineteenth century reporters are available in hard copy and micro-film in selected public access law libraries.

Cases not published in a legal reporter may have been reported in a local newspaper such as the Brooklyn Eagle. Contact a public library for questions about nineteenth century newspapers.