Missouri Court Records Search & Case Lookup | UniCourt (2024)

Search for public court records online in the Missouri Courts. Lookup the case information you need and search by case number, case name, party, attorney, judge, docket entry, filing date, courthouse, case type, party type, party representation, and more. Get access to the court dockets, court documents, transcripts, and legal data on the parties, attorneys, law firms, and judges involved in court cases across the State of Missouri.

UniCourt’s case search gives you real-time access to a range of case types in the Missouri State Courts, including Civil Rights, Contract, Criminal, Family, Forfeiture, Labor, Personal Injury, Probate, Property, and Small Claims cases. Along with streamlined access to Missouri court data, you can also get the latest court docket information, obtain case summaries, check case statuses, download court documents, and track lawsuits to get real-time alerts on new case updates.

Located in the midwestern part of the United States, the State of Missouri is home to over 6.1 million people and has a land area of 69,715 square miles. The state capital is Jefferson City, but the most populous city in the state is Kansas City. The largest metropolitan area in Missouri is the Greater St. Louis area, which also includes parts of Illinois near the city of St. Louis.

Missouri’s court system consists of a Supreme Court, a Court of Appeals, and trial level Circuit Courts.

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Established in 1820, when Missouri’s first constitution was adopted, the Supreme Court of Missouri is the state’s highest court. According to the Court, its role is “to ensure a stable and predictable system of justice by serving as the final arbiter of disputes involving the state's constitution and laws.”

The Missouri Supreme Court has exclusive jurisdiction over cases involving the validity of a U.S. statute or treaty, the validity of a Missouri statute or constitutional provision, the state's revenue laws, challenges to a statewide elected official's right to hold office, or the imposition of the death penalty. The Court has the discretion to review matters regarding questions of general interest or importance, where the laws should be reexamined, or conflicts with an earlier appellate decision.

The Supreme Court not only makes legal decisions, but supervises the administration of the lower courts, makes court practice and procedure rules, licenses all Missouri attorneys, and disciplines lawyers and judges for violations of ethical rules.

The Missouri Supreme Court is composed of seven justices, including one Chief Justice. Each justice is appointed by the Governor from a list prepared by a nominating commission.

Missouri Supreme Court Justices are appointed to 12 year terms. To be a Supreme Court Justice in Missouri, a person must be a U.S. citizen for at least 15 years, a qualified state voter for at least nine years, licensed to practice law in Missouri, over the age of 30, and

under the age of 70, since retirement at 70 is mandatory.

The Missouri Supreme Court has been involved with many important cases in U.S. jurisprudence, including Birch v. Benton, Blair v. Ridgely, and the landmark case that made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, Dred Scott v. Sandford.

The Missouri Court of Appeals is the state’s intermediate appellate court. The Court of Appeals handles the majority of appeals from the Missouri trial courts. The Court of Appeals has exclusive jurisdiction over all appeals from the lower courts except those under the exclusive jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. Cases that are decided by the Court of Appeals may be appealed to the Supreme Court, however, less than ten percent of appeals are transferred to the Supreme Court.

The Court of Appeals is divided into three geographic areas: the Eastern District, based in St. Louis; the Western District, based in Kansas City; and the Southern District, based in Springfield.

The Court of Appeals is composed of 32 judges spread across the appellate districts. There are currently 14 judges in the Eastern District, 11 judges in the Western District, and seven judges in the Southern District. Appellate judges are selected according to the Missouri Nonpartisan Court Plan, which involves selection by the Appellate Judicial Commission based on merit, gubernatorial appointment, and retention by the voters at the ballot box.

To be eligible to be a Missouri Court of Appeals judge, a person must be at least 30 years old, licensed to practice law in Missouri, a U.S. citizen for at least 15 years, a qualified voter of Missouri for nine years preceding selection, and must live in the appellate district in which they serve.

The Missouri Circuit Courts are the state’s local trial courts. The Circuit Courts have original jurisdiction over criminal and civil cases, meaning most cases begin in the Circuit Courts. The Circuit Courts contain numerous divisions, including juvenile, family, small claims, municipal, and probate divisions. The Circuit Courts also operate various treatment courts.

Missouri is organized into 46 Judicial Circuits, with one Circuit Court in every county. Depending on the size of the county, there may be more than one Circuit Court location. Over 400 judges and commissioners preside over the Missouri Circuit Courts. Judges are elected in nonpartisan elections to six year terms.

To be eligible to be a judge in a Circuit Court, a person must be a U.S. citizen for at least 10 years, a qualified state voter for at least three years, a resident of the Circuit for at least one year, licensed to practice law in Missouri, and at least 30 years old.

Created in 1972, the Missouri Commission on Retirement, Removal and Discipline is an independent state agency that is authorized to investigate complaints against justices and judges on the Supreme Court, Court of Appeals, trial courts, and members of judicial commissions.

The Commission on Retirement, Removal and Discipline “is responsible for overseeing the ethical conduct of judges both on and off the bench.”

The Commission on Retirement, Removal and Discipline is composed of the following six members who serve six year terms: two citizens who are not members of the Missouri Bar, appointed by the Governor; two lawyers appointed by the Board of Governors of the Missouri Bar; one judge of the Court of Appeals selected by a majority of the judges of the Court of Appeals; and one judge of the Circuit Courts selected by a majority of the Circuit judges in Missouri.

• St. Louis County has the busiest courts in Missouri.

• In 2021, 40,126 civil cases were filed in the Missouri Circuit Courts.

• Over 23,700 juvenile cases were filed in Missouri in 2021.

• The Missouri Supreme Court disposed of 53 cases in 2022.

UniCourt is your single source for state and federal court records, offering comprehensive court coverage and the most complete and accurate dataset available.

Each day of the week, UniCourt collects all of the newly filed civil and criminal cases in the Missouri Courts we cover and lets you search through those new case filings in our CrowdSourced Library™. UniCourt allows you to track state court litigation and get real-time case alerts sent directly to your inbox. Additionally, UniCourt enables you to download court documents on-demand without ever having to login to a government court database, and gives you unlimited access to download millions of free state and federal court documents in our CrowdSourced Library™.

UniCourt provides you with access to many state courts across Missouri, including many of the largest counties across the state, such as the Jackson County Circuit Court, the Greene County Circuit Court, the Clay County Circuit Court, the Jefferson County Circuit Court, and the Jasper County Circuit Court.

UniCourt also gives you access to court records for all of the federal courts across the state of Missouri:

• Eastern District of Missouri

• Western District of Missouri

• Eastern District of Missouri
• Western District of Missouri

• Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals

UniCourt’s industry-leading Legal Data APIs provide Enterprise users with on-demand, bulk access to structured data from Missouri state and federal courts. Our Legal Data as a Service (LDaaS) collects, organizes, standardizes, and normalizes court data from Missouri state courts and all federal courts, and makes it readily available via our UniCourt Enterprise API for business development, competitive intelligence, litigation strategy, and docket management.

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