Yes, it is true that the public has access to most court information. In fact, the public has access to most court information online. I consider myself a bit of an expert in the field of finding and retrieving court information. I am a private investigator who specializes in online investigations and document retrieval. In this article I will give a few tips as to where one can start looking for public access to court information.

The catch, always a catch, is the public that GOES to the court house has access to most court information. Ok that is not a catch all statement but the point is there are still many courts out there that only allow access to document to a person standing in front of them. This makes it very hard to get documents online. The State of Connecticut offers public access to almost all court records online via the CT Judicial Web Site. On the other hand, Mississippi does not even have a system in place for offering court records online. I am just trying to clear up the definition of public access to court information as it is handled today.

The most important step when searching is to check the state or county's judicial web site to see if they offer an online search for documents. This should at least tell you if information is available on a certain subject. If you are searching a state that does not offer online records there is still one more option to try.

There are many court information databases on the internet that specialize in the searching of court records. What they do is gather all the information from each state and put it into a huge database of millions of documents that are searchable to subscribers. Of course they charge a subscription fee for their time and effort it took to populate this database. We use them on a daily basis and more often than not they come up with results that we were not even looking for.  

Be careful when selecting a database to use. Some do not update their files often enough and some just don't have enough information in the first place. This is why I always recommend using a database that offers a money back guarantee and some kind of preliminary, before you pay, results.

While it is true that there is public access to court information actually getting the information can be a little harder. Hopefully my tips will save some of your precious time and get you the results you are looking for.