Michigan Court Records Search by Name

Independent court-record guide: Public-Court-Records.us is an independent educational website. It is not the Michigan Judiciary, Michigan Supreme Court, State Court Administrative Office, Michigan State Police, a Michigan trial court, PACER, a law firm, or a government agency. This page explains how to find and understand publicly accessible Michigan court records. It does not provide legal advice, certify records, conduct background checks, or override sealing, set-aside, confidentiality, or access restrictions.

Michigan Court Records Search by Name: MiCOURT is the starting point—but not every Michigan case appears there

For many Michigan public court records, the official starting point is MiCOURT Case Search. The portal can provide public trial-court case history for participating courts, including qualifying civil, traffic, criminal, domestic, and probate cases.

The important Michigan-specific issue is that MiCOURT is not a guarantee that every Michigan court, every historical conviction, every protected case type, or every court document is available through one online name search. Some courts apply a seven-year criminal-sentence display filter, several sensitive case categories do not appear at all, and Michigan generally does not provide public trial-court document images through ordinary internet access.

MiCOURT checked: August 30, 2026 Michigan Court Rules checked 2025 Records Management Standards reviewed PACER pricing checked: August 30, 2026

Michigan court records use different systems depending on the court

Michigan’s online court-record model has three practical access levels

Michigan Trial Court Router

Select the type of case you are trying to find. This tool does not collect names, birth dates, driver’s license numbers, or other personal information.

Felony criminal case

A felony generally begins in District Court for arraignment and preliminary proceedings. If the defendant is bound over, Circuit Court handles the felony case. For bindovers entered on or after July 2, 2024, the District or Municipal Court records become nonpublic after the bindover and the Circuit Court record becomes the public case route.

Misdemeanor or local ordinance case

District Court generally handles misdemeanors punishable by one year or less and ordinance/charter violations. Start with the relevant District Court in MiCOURT or its local portal.

Civil lawsuit for $25,000 or less

Michigan District Court generally has exclusive jurisdiction over civil claims of $25,000 or less. Identify the correct district by county/city and search that court.

Larger civil lawsuit

Circuit Court is Michigan’s court of general jurisdiction and generally handles civil matters not assigned to another court, including civil claims beyond the District Court’s $25,000 jurisdictional limit.

Divorce, custody, paternity or support

Use the Family Division of Circuit Court. Public case information can appear online where permitted, but protected family and juvenile matters have additional privacy rules.

Estate, trust or guardianship

Use Probate Court. MiCOURT may display qualifying probate cases depending on the court, but wills and several protected probate-related categories are excluded from public MiCOURT display.

Traffic ticket

Start with the District or Municipal Court named on the ticket. Some Michigan courts participate in eTix, which supports ticket/case lookup and payment functions. Participation is not universal.

Michigan appeal

Use the Michigan Judiciary’s appellate Case Search for Court of Appeals and Supreme Court records rather than MiCOURT trial-court search.

Federal case

Use PACER. Michigan federal cases may belong to the Eastern District or Western District. PACER Case Locator can help identify the correct federal court when it is unknown.

How MiCOURT Case Search actually works

The public MiCOURT workflow is court-focused. You select the Michigan court you want to search and then search that court’s public information. That is different from assuming one name search automatically sweeps every Circuit, District, Probate, Municipal, and appellate court in Michigan.

Search Michigan court records by name

1. Open MiCOURT Case Search. Read the Terms of Service before continuing because they contain important coverage and privacy restrictions.
2. Select the correct court. If you do not know the court, first use Michigan’s Trial Court Directory to identify the Circuit, District, Probate, or Municipal Court serving the relevant location.
3. Choose the name-search route. The public interface supports party-name searching. Depending on the court/interface, a last name or business name is the main starting field, with additional first/middle-name or birth-year information available to narrow results.
4. Begin with the most reliable spelling. Avoid adding speculative information simply to force a result.
5. Use the filing year or case category when useful. A common name becomes easier to verify when you know approximately when and where the case was filed.
6. Review all plausible matches. The same person can appear in more than one case and multiple people can share the same name.
7. Open the public case history. Look for the case number, case type, parties, status, docket/register of actions, hearing information, and disposition-related entries that the selected court makes public.
8. Verify the court level. In felony matters, a District Court case can transition to Circuit Court after bindover.
9. Check the later docket entries. Do not treat the first complaint, charge, or petition as the final outcome.
10. Contact the court of record if information is missing. MiCOURT explicitly states that its online information does not replace the official record on file with the court.

Michigan’s most important MiCOURT limitation: some courts use a 7-year criminal-sentence filter

MiCOURT’s current Terms of Service state that some courts only display case numbers and information for criminal convictions when sentencing occurred within seven years of the date of the search.

The MiCOURT court-selection information identifies affected courts through a “7-Year Criminal Sentence Filter” indicator.

If an older criminal conviction does not appear

1. Confirm that you selected the correct Michigan court.
2. Check whether that court is marked as using the 7-Year Criminal Sentence Filter.
3. Confirm the approximate sentencing year.
4. Save any case number you already have from old paperwork.
5. Open the Michigan Trial Court Directory.
6. Contact the court of record directly.
7. Ask whether the public case history or file is available through another court access method.
8. Respect any set-aside, sealing, or nonpublic status reported by the court.

Another Michigan-specific issue: a felony case can disappear from District Court after bindover

Michigan Court Rule 8.119 contains a significant access rule that took effect for criminal cases bound over on or after July 2, 2024.

When a District or Municipal Court binds a defendant over to Circuit Court, the case and court records maintained by the lower court become nonpublic immediately after the bindover order. The Circuit Court case record—including transmitted records—remains accessible according to the court rules.

MiCOURT does not display several sensitive case categories at all

The current MiCOURT Terms of Service specifically state that the following case types will not be displayed in the public case-search system:

Michigan public court records online generally do not include the document images

Michigan’s July 2025 Trial Court Records Management Standards make a useful distinction between public electronic access at the court and public access through the internet.

Public inspection is generally free; copies can cost money

Michigan Court Rule 8.119(J) says a court may not charge a fee merely to access public case-history information or to retrieve or inspect a public case document, regardless of whether the record is onsite, offsite, paper, or electronic.

The same rule allows a court to charge a lawful reproduction fee when a copy is requested.

Michigan certified court-copy fee: statewide statutory baseline

Michigan Compiled Laws § 600.2546 currently provides a statewide baseline for certified copies and exemplifications from Circuit, District, and Probate Courts when no different special provision applies.

Fee checked: August 30, 2026. Always confirm the actual fee with the court of record because another statute, rule, local process, or special service may apply.

How to request a certified Michigan court record

1. Find the court case. Use MiCOURT, the local court search, or the appellate search as appropriate.
2. Save the complete case number.
3. Identify the exact court. A Circuit Court clerk cannot necessarily certify a District or Probate Court document.
4. Identify the exact document. Examples include a judgment, order, register of actions, divorce decree, sentence, or probate order.
5. Ask the receiving institution what it requires. Plain copy, certified copy, exemplified copy, authentication, and apostille are not interchangeable terms.
6. Open the local court’s website through the Michigan Trial Court Directory.
7. Look for Records, Court Records, Copies, Clerk, or Register of Probate instructions.
8. Confirm the fee. The general statutory certification baseline is $10 plus $1 per page when no special provision applies.
9. Confirm request method. Michigan courts can have different in-person, mail, electronic, or local-order procedures.
10. Keep the receipt and case number.

Michigan case numbers tell you more than just a sequence number

The July 2025 Michigan Trial Court Records Management Standards explain that a standard complaint or petition number contains three principal components:

Michigan provides examples such as:

• 2017-123456-DM
• 2009 123456 CZ

The two-letter case-type code is established by the State Court Administrative Office. A local system can display additional identifiers—such as a judge initial—but those local additions are not necessarily part of the transferable core case number.

Michigan Circuit, District, and Probate Courts do different work

Michigan still has four municipal courts

Michigan is unusual because a small municipal-court system still survives in the Grosse Pointe area. The State Court Administrative Office’s current judicial-resources materials identify the only remaining municipal courts as serving:

• City of Grosse Pointe;
• Grosse Pointe Farms / Grosse Pointe Shores;
• Grosse Pointe Park; and
• Grosse Pointe Woods.

Michigan traffic-ticket search can use eTix at participating courts

Michigan’s official eTix system provides payable ticket/case searching for participating District and Municipal Courts. It is a separate function from a full MiCOURT docket search.

The current eTix search provides several lookup combinations, including:

• Last Name + Ticket/Case Number;
• Last Name + Date of Birth;
• Driver’s License Number + State; and
• License Plate Number + State.

Not every Michigan court participates in eTix. Select the county and court on the official service and follow that court’s available payment/search options.

MiCOURT has a current Charge Level warning for attempted felony offenses

This is an unusually important portal-specific accuracy warning.

MiCOURT currently states that the Charge Level display contains a temporary error for charges under Michigan’s attempt statute, MCL 750.92.

According to MiCOURT:

• the portal currently displays FELONY when a defendant is charged with attempting to commit any felony offense;
• under MCL 750.92(3), attempting a felony punishable by less than five years can instead constitute a misdemeanor; and
• an attempted offense is marked with the letter A under the “Attempted, Conspired, Solicited” area of the search result.

Clean Slate and set-aside convictions can change what the public sees

Michigan’s public court record is not permanently frozen.

Under current Michigan Court Rule 8.119, information related to a conviction that has been legally set aside must be redacted before the case record or court record is provided to the general public.

Michigan also implemented automatic conviction set-aside procedures under its Clean Slate laws. As a result, an older conviction that once appeared publicly may later become unavailable to an ordinary public search if it is legally set aside.

MiCOURT is a court-case tool, not Michigan’s criminal-history database

A Michigan court docket and a Michigan criminal-history record are different products.

Michigan State Police says ICHAT’s public criminal-history information excludes, among other things, federal cases, tribal cases, traffic records, juvenile records, certain local misdemeanors, and out-of-state records.

How to interpret a Michigan criminal case without confusing allegation and outcome

Michigan civil judgments can change after entry

A docket showing a civil judgment does not by itself tell you whether the judgment is still unpaid or unchanged.

Check later entries for:

• satisfaction of judgment;
• amended judgment;
• vacated judgment;
• appeal;
• bankruptcy-related stay;
• renewal;
• reopening; or
• other post-judgment activity.

Michigan’s records standards specifically recognize later judgment satisfaction and postjudgment collection events as part of case-history data in applicable civil cases.

Michigan appellate records use a separate Judiciary Case Search

Do not assume MiCOURT is the complete record of an appeal. The Michigan Judiciary maintains a separate case-search system for appellate records.

The Michigan Court of Appeals maintains clerk offices in Detroit, Troy, Grand Rapids, and Lansing. Its main Clerk’s Office is at the Michigan Hall of Justice in Lansing.

Business Court records have an additional Michigan search route

Michigan’s Judiciary also provides a dedicated Business Court Search. This can be useful when you know the case is assigned to a Michigan Business Court rather than conducting repeated generic party-name searches.

Old Michigan court records: online absence can have several different causes

Michigan’s current Trial Court Records Management Standards were revised in July 2025. The standards work with separate approved retention schedules for:

• General Schedule #13 — District Courts;
• General Schedule #14 — Probate Courts;
• General Schedule #15 — Circuit Courts.

Those schedules establish minimum retention periods and can authorize eventual destruction or transfer of qualifying records to the Archives of Michigan.

Older-record retrieval workflow

1. Identify the approximate filing year.
2. Identify the county and court level.
3. Search MiCOURT or the local court system first.
4. If you have a case number, save it.
5. Check whether a seven-year criminal filter could explain the missing result.
6. Check whether a felony case was bound over to Circuit Court.
7. Check whether the case type is excluded from MiCOURT.
8. Contact the court of record.
9. Ask whether the record is electronic, paper, microfilm, offsite, transferred, or disposed of under the approved retention schedule.
10. If the court identifies an Archives of Michigan transfer, follow that official archive route.

What does Michigan consider the official court record?

Michigan’s July 2025 Records Management Standards explain that there is only one official court record, regardless of whether that official version is maintained on paper or electronically.

An electronically filed or electronically generated court document can itself be the official record. A paper printout of an electronically filed official document is a copy rather than a second official original.

Why a Michigan case may not appear in your search

1. Wrong court selected. MiCOURT’s public workflow is court-focused, not a guaranteed all-court statewide sweep.
2. The court is not available through the same MiCOURT search route. Use the Trial Court Directory and check the court’s own website.
3. The case is older than a participating court’s 7-year criminal display window.
4. The felony was bound over. For qualifying post-July 2, 2024 bindovers, move from District/Municipal Court to Circuit Court.
5. The case type is excluded. Adoption, PPO, juvenile, mental illness, wills, and other listed categories do not display through public MiCOURT.
6. The conviction was set aside. Michigan requires set-aside conviction information to be protected from ordinary public access.
7. The name spelling differs. Try the correct legal name and appropriate court rather than adding unsupported search syntax.
8. You have the wrong filing year. A date filter can accidentally exclude the right case.
9. The record is historical or retained offline. Contact the clerk.
10. The matter is appellate. Use Michigan Judiciary Case Search.
11. The matter is federal. Use PACER.

Verify identity before connecting a Michigan case to a person

• full first and last name;
• middle name or initial where publicly displayed;
• suffix;
• court;
• case number;
• filing date/year;
• party role;
• attorney information where useful;
• lawfully displayed age/birth-year information where appropriate; and
• later docket information confirming the same case.

Michigan party-role decoder

Michigan federal court records: determine East vs West before searching

Michigan has two federal district courts:

Use PACER Case Locator when you do not know which federal court has the case

1. Open PACER.
2. Create an account if you do not already have one; registration itself currently has no fee.
3. If you know the Michigan federal district, search that court directly.
4. If you do not know the district, use PACER Case Locator.
5. Search by party information.
6. Confirm the federal court and case number.
7. Use date filters before opening a long docket.
8. Review the fee displayed before opening multiple documents.

What should you do after finding a Michigan court case?

Official Michigan sources reviewed

• MiCOURT Case Search — current public search terms, 7-year criminal filter, excluded case types, portal-use restrictions, and attempted-felony Charge Level warning.
• Michigan Court Rule 8.119 — public access, reproduction fees, set-aside records, and July 2, 2024 bindover/remand access rules.
• Michigan Trial Court Records Management Standards — July 2025 — internet vs courthouse electronic access, document images, official records, case-number structure, retention, and archive handling.
• Michigan Trial Courts / Trial Court Directory — court locations, local websites, and contact routing.
• Michigan District Court Jurisdiction — current civil-jurisdiction information.
• Michigan Circuit Court Jurisdiction — general jurisdiction and Family Division framework.
• Michigan Probate Court Jurisdiction — estates, trusts and other probate jurisdiction.
• Michigan Revised Judicature Act — MCL 600.2546 — statewide certified/exemplified copy fee baseline.
• Michigan eTix — participating-court ticket/case search and payment fields.
• Michigan Judiciary Case Search — appellate case-search route.
• Michigan Business Court Search — specialized Business Court case search.
• Michigan State Police Criminal History Records — ICHAT distinction and public criminal-history coverage.
• U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Michigan — federal court-record access.
• U.S. District Court — Western District of Michigan — federal case information and PACER route.
• PACER Pricing — current federal electronic-access fees and announced 2027 change.

Research review date: August 30, 2026. Michigan court portals, local court participation, fees, record visibility, court locations, and individual case information can change after publication. Verify time-sensitive information with the court of record.

Frequently asked questions about Michigan public court records

1. What is the official Michigan court records search by name?

MiCOURT Case Search is the official starting point for many Michigan trial-court records. Select the appropriate court and search its public case information by party name or case number. Not every Michigan court or case type is guaranteed to appear through MiCOURT.

2. Can I search every Michigan court at once in MiCOURT?

Do not assume so. MiCOURT’s public workflow is court-focused, and Michigan itself warns that not all court information is necessarily available through the database. If you do not know the court, use the Michigan Trial Court Directory first and then search the appropriate Circuit, District, Probate, or Municipal Court.

3. Why is an older Michigan criminal conviction missing from MiCOURT?

Some participating courts apply MiCOURT’s 7-Year Criminal Sentence Filter. Those courts may display conviction case information only when sentencing occurred within seven years of the search date. Older files may require direct contact with the court. A lawful set-aside can also make conviction information nonpublic.

4. Why did a felony case disappear from Michigan District Court search?

For criminal cases bound over to Circuit Court on or after July 2, 2024, Michigan Court Rule 8.119 makes the District or Municipal Court records nonpublic after entry of the bindover order. Search the corresponding Circuit Court case instead.

5. Which case types do not appear in public MiCOURT?

MiCOURT currently excludes several categories including adoption, juvenile and child-protection proceedings, juvenile guardianships, mental-illness proceedings, name changes, personal protection orders, extreme risk protection orders, surrendered-newborn matters, young-adult voluntary foster care, wills, and other specifically listed protected case types.

6. Can I download Michigan trial-court documents from MiCOURT?

Michigan’s current records standards generally restrict public internet access to case number, party-name, and case-history information and do not provide general public access to trial-court document images through the internet. Qualifying public documents may be inspected at the court or requested from the court of record.

7. How much does a certified Michigan court record cost?

MCL 600.2546 currently provides a general fee of $10 plus $1 per page for certified copies and exemplifications from Circuit, District, and Probate Courts when no different special provision applies. Verify the exact fee with the court before ordering.

8. Is the FELONY Charge Level in MiCOURT always accurate for an attempted offense?

No. MiCOURT currently warns of a temporary display error involving charges under MCL 750.92. The portal may display FELONY for an attempt charge even when Michigan law can classify the attempted offense as a misdemeanor. Verify the underlying offense and court record before describing the charge level.

9. Where do I search Michigan Court of Appeals or Supreme Court records?

Use the Michigan Judiciary’s appellate Case Search rather than relying only on MiCOURT trial-court records. The Court of Appeals and Michigan Supreme Court maintain separate appellate case information.

10. Can Public-Court-Records.us be used for employment or tenant background screening?

No. Public-Court-Records.us is not a Consumer Reporting Agency and should not be treated as an FCRA consumer-reporting service for employment, housing, credit, insurance, or similar eligibility decisions. A court-name match also does not establish a person’s identity by itself.