Arkansas Court Records: Details and Overview

According to statistics, more than 100 million cases are filed each year in state trial courts, while roughly 400 000 lawsuits are filed within federal trial courts. 
 

Each state has its court structure, which corresponds with the federal government's legal structure. Thus, the statistic that one in three Americans have had experience with a court is not that surprising. 

If you live in Arkansas, you might have been interested in looking at the Arkansas court records and running the Arkansas court search. Continue reading this article to learn who is eligible to run the Arkansas civil court records search and how it is better.

How can Arkansas civil court records be defined?

Generally, court records serve as one of the best investigation and educational tools. Here is why: Arkansas court records contain all the information about each lawsuit, which was then turned into a legal case. Typical Arkansas civil court records include the following information:

• Full name of both plaintiff and defendant

• Brief description of the case

• The time and date the proceeding has been taken

Types of Arkansas court records:

As a rule, Arkansas civil court records can be divided into two types: public and confidential. Public Arkansas civil court records can be viewed by any individual unless stated otherwise by the court. On the contrary, confidential Arkansas civil court records contain information that is considered sensitive and can negatively impact a party's standard of life. 

It is worthy of note that there are a few exceptions to the rule: 

-Depending on the case, some of the public Arkansas civil court records might be kept confidential according to the judge's decision. An example would be a fee waiver application.

If the case has drawn too much attention, such as when the proceedings involve celebrities, a judge may decide to make sure Arkansas court information is public if it would have been considered private in all other cases.

Examples of Arkansas court records:

Arkansas court records are hidden from the public eye in any of the cases mentioned above. Confidential cases include "juvenile dependency" and "juvenile delinquency." 

Arkansas civil court records on "juvenile dependency" contain records of cases where the child is removed from their parents, whereas the "juvenile delinquency" court cases showcase the accusations that a child has committed a crime.

Who is eligible to run an Arkansas court records search?

Having established which types of records your court has and therefore having estimated your options of running an Arkansas civil court records search, you need to check whether you are eligible.

Bear in mind that in most cases, if you are a party in the case, you would be eligible to access both public and confidential Arkansas court records. 

However, if you are not a party in the case, you can only run an Arkansas civil court records search if you belong to any of the following groups:

• Person Authorized by a Party

If the party in the case needs some external help, they may assign another person to help them. In this case, a person authorized by a party can run an Arkansas court records search. However, this does not apply to electronic records of criminal, juvenile justice, child welfare cases, or confidential electronic records.

• Court-appointed People

In some cases, a court might appoint people to go through the Arkansas court information.

• Legal Aid and Government Staff are entitled to run an Arkansas court records search in some cases.

Where to run an Arkansas civil court records search?

Depending on how the Arkansas civil court records are stored, you have a few options for running an Arkansas civil court records search:

If your records are stored in paper physically at the courthouse, your only option would be to arrive at the courthouse and request access to the Arkansas court information.

If your Arkansas court information is stored digitally, then you have a few options on how to access it:

- by physically arriving at the courthouse and requesting to access the Arkansas court information. Accessing Arkansas court information at any of the devices located at the courthouse;

- by accessing the Arkansas court information remotely from any digital device (such as laptop, smartphone, tablet) that has internet access.

We recommend using both the Administrative Office of the Courts Public Court Website (www.caseinfo.arcourts.gov) to gain the best information about the case and the private website. Such as backgroundheck.co to gain better information about the parties involved in the case.

Key takeaways: Whenever you need to run the Arkansas court search or Arkansas civil court records search, make sure you are eligible first. Once you know you are allowed to run an Arkansas court records search, make sure to check which option you could use to do that: either physically at the courthouse or remotely from home using either official or private websites.