Courts Records Online – How Can I Search Court Records?

Courts records online have been available for a few years. Anyone who wants to perform a background check on someone would want to include information coming from county court records. The challenge is which service to use? There are several types of options. Let’s describe them.

Depending on how technology-savvy a local county courthouse is, they or may not offer their public records for online viewing. It also probably depends on whether they can financially support the technical infrastructure required to offer such a service. There are some counties and states (Florida, for example) that allow online access, however they charge a fee to view or download certain types of court records. So – depending on the jurisdiction that you are checking up on, you may or may not get your information for free. Of course, if there is no information to be found and you technically don’t have to download or view anything, this is technically a free option.

There are now online services that compile courts records information from multiple county and state jurisdictions into massive databases for online viewing. These services are not free, however there is an advantage in that it is a one-stop shopping service which might turn up information on another county or jurisdiction for the person that you are researching. Information that might turn up could include arrests, bench warrants, jail sentences – all information that could be critical in determining one’s character. Remember however that if you discover that someone was arrested for something, it doesn’t mean that they weren’t falsely accused and perhaps not eventually convicted of a criminal offense.