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New York State Legal Research: Dockets

Quick Tips

Dockets are a great way to gain insight into individual cases. They contain information about the court, counsel, parties, and the nature of the case. Depending on the case, a record of the proceedings might be available. eCourts is the best method with which to access dockets. However, subscription services, like Bloomberg, Westaw, and Lexis, also provide access.

eCourts

eCourts is the docket service of the New York State Unified Court System. eCourts contains dockets for local civil cases, supreme court civil cases, criminal cases, and family court cases. eCourts also makes it easy to track pending civil and criminal cases from participating courts through eTrack alerts. You will need to create an account to log in.

WebCivil Local

  • WebCivil Local contains cases from every local civil court in New York
  • You can search by index number, party, attorney/firm, judge, court calendar, or attorney/firm calendar

WebCivil Supreme

  • WebCivil Supreme contains cases from every supreme civil court in New York
  • You can search by index number, party, attorney/firm, justice, court calendar, attorney/firm calendar, or document/keyword
  • There is also a mobile version.

WebCriminal

  • WebCriminal contains cases from select criminal courts in New York
  • You can search by case number, summons number, defendant, or court calendar
  • WebCriminal only contains pending cases
  • There is also a mobile version

WebFamily

  • WebFamily contains cases from every family court in New York
  • You can search by file/docket number, attorney/firm, or court calendar
  • WebFamily only contains pending cases

Subscription Services

Subscription services, like Bloomberg, Westlaw, and Lexis, also provide access to dockets. However, their scope of coverage is not as comprehensive as that which is available on eCourts. The main advantage of subscription services is derived from their enhanced search capabilities (i.e., it is easier to perform keyword searches on a subscription service than it is on eCourts).

Bloomberg

  • Select civil dockets are available. 
  • You can search by keyword, court, filing type, party, judge, docket number, date, attorney/firm, case name, case status, or case type
  • From the homepage, go to Dockets Search. Look for Courts and click on the link for Browse Full List. Use the dropdown menu to expand the options for State Court Dockets & Case Information, then use the dropdown menu to expand the options for New York. You can select a particular county, multiple counties, or all counties.

Westlaw

  • Select civil dockets are available. 
  • You can search by party, index/docket number, keyword, nature of suit, date, attorney/firm, or judge
  • From the homepage, go to State materials. Select New York and look for the link on the right side of the page for New York State Dockets. You can select a particular county, multiple counties, or all counties.

Lexis

  • Select civil dockets are available. 
  • You can search by keyword, docket number, court, date, judge, party, attorney, or firm
  • From the homepage, go to State. Select New York and scroll down the page until you see Case Related Materials. Click on All New York Dockets, then click on Dockets New York Supreme Court.