Indiana Court Case Search — Find Your Lawsuit

Dena Standley | October 19, 2022

Legal Expert, Paralegal
Dena Standley, BA

Dena Standley is a seasoned paralegal with more than 20 years of experience in legal research and writing, having received a certification as a Legal Assistant/Paralegal from Southern Technical College.

Edited by Hannah Locklear

Editor at SoloSuit
Hannah Locklear, BA

Hannah Locklear is SoloSuit’s Marketing and Impact Manager. With an educational background in Linguistics, Spanish, and International Development from Brigham Young University, Hannah has also worked as a legal support specialist for several years.

Searching for your cour case online is like ^^

Summary: Are you looking for your court case online in Indiana? Keep reading for SoloSuit's guide to Indiana court case search tools, how to search for your case, the state's court structure, and more.

Generally, you may request court records and documents from the clerk's office in the county where the case was heard. You may request a transcript for a specific hearing or trial from the court reporter. Contact the court or clerk's office to request these documents.

You can also search Indiana's Public Records site for civil court records. But Mycase.in.gov only provides case information from courts that use the state's Odyssey e-file case management system. While some documents may be available sometimes, it isn't available online if you can't access one on mycase.in.gov. In that case, contact the county clerk's office where the case is heard.

Find your Indiana court case online

You can search for cases on Indiana Case Search. This is a statewide tool that makes finding your case status simple and quick. Each search only yields 1,000 results, so it is pretty easy to narrow your search to find your case.

To search for your court case in Indiana, these are the main criteria you should try using:

Case Number: Using a case number, citation number, or cross-reference number as a starting point. You do not need to include hyphens or leading zeros when entering a case number.
Party Name: Using a business name or the last name and at least the first, middle, or birthdate. For example, you must type the name exactly as it appears in the case record to find results when searching by business name.
Business Name: Search for "General Business" as a business name, for example. You'll only find cases where the party is "General Business" and not "General Business LLC" or "General Business, LLC." Your search results will improve if you use a wildcard. Both cases with "General Business" and "General Business LLC" will appear in the results if you search for "General Business*" with the asterisk at the end. For more information on searching with wildcards, click here.
Attorney: Use the attorney number or the last name and at least the first or middle name. You can find this information on Indiana's Bar Association website. Enter only your last name and either your first or middle debt collection defense attorney's / bar number to search by an attorney. If you're looking for someone by their last name, you can refine your results by adding their first or middle name.

What if I can't find my court case?

If you are struggling to find your case with the criteria mentioned above, you can also try a wildcard search or a Similar-sounding search.

Keep reading to learn more about these types of searches.

Searching with wildcards

A search using wildcards, also called a "starts with search," allows you to search even if you don't have all the required information. To use a wildcard, you can replace the trailing part of your search term with an asterisk *. You can search for names that start with J or JO or JOH, but you cannot search for names that end with SKY or STEIN.

Let's take a look at an example of a wildcard name search.

Assume you know the party's surname is "DiCaprio," and their first name begins with the letter "L." You get a search including "Leonardo DiCaprio," "Lenny DiCaprio," and "Laban DiCaprio" by typing "DiCaprio" for the last name and "L*" for the first name.

You can use a wildcard in either the first or last name, but it cannot replace the entire first or last name. If you check the box for a sound-alike search, it will not work on any name that contains a wild card. If you don't know it, you can look up an attorney's bar number on the Roll of Attorneys website.

Similar-sounding search

Because it affects searches by name, the sounds-like search only appears on party or attorney searches. Use the sounds-like search if you're unsure how to spell a name, want to look up alternate spellings, or look for a similar name.

Case results for names like Shepard, Shephard, Shepherd, and Sheppard, and Syfert, Seifert, and Seibert, can be found using the sounds-like search for the name "Shepherd.

Court-ordered search. You can narrow your search to a single court or a group of courts (e.g., appellate courts, commercial courts). Some ‌ options in the "Court" menu will alter or remove the available case types.

A brief overview of Indiana's judicial system

In order to find your case online, it's important to know which court's jurisdiction your case falls under. As per the Constitution, Indiana state is governed by a Supreme Court, an appeals court, circuit courts, and such other courts as the General Assembly may appoint (Indiana Constitution Article 7§1). Indiana state courts are divided into two levels: trial courts and appellate courts.

Most appellate courts deal with cases that have already been decided by trial courts. There are three appellate courts in Indiana:

The Supreme Court
Court of Appeals
Indiana Tax Court

Despite their different names, trial courts follow similar rules and practices. Legislative history and local custom influence the names of trial courts more than true differences in their nature or purpose. The cases heard in these courts vary greatly from county to county. Trial courts in Indiana are divided into three categories:

Circuit Courts
Superior Courts
City or Town Courts

So, if you've been sued for a debt in Indiana, your case will start out in one of the trial courts. If you want to appeal the case, it will move up to the Court of Appeals and potentially Supreme Court. The graphic below can help you learn more about Indiana's civil court structure:

Indiana court structure

Need more help?

If you have ‌questions about a specific case or the contents of a case record, please get in touch with the Clerk's Office in the county where the lawsuit is filed. SoloSuit has also compiled a list of court case lookup tools for each state.

Respond to a debt lawsuit in Indiana

If you are being sued for a debt in Indiana, the first step to winning your case is to respond. In order to respond to a debt lawsuit, you need to file a written Answer with the court and serve whoever is suing you with a copy. In Indiana, you have 20 days to respond before you lose by default.

SoloSuit can help you draft an Answer in just 15 minutes.

Check out this video to learn more about how to draft an Answer to a debt lawsuit in Indiana:

What is SoloSuit?

SoloSuit makes it easy to fight debt collectors.

You can use SoloSuit to respond to a debt lawsuit, to send letters to collectors, and even to settle a debt.

SoloSuit's Answer service is a step-by-step web-app that asks you all the necessary questions to complete your Answer. Upon completion, we'll have an attorney review your document and we'll file it for you.

Respond with SoloSuit

"First time getting sued by a debt collector and I was searching all over YouTube and ran across SoloSuit, so I decided to buy their services with their attorney reviewed documentation which cost extra but it was well worth it! SoloSuit sent the documentation to the parties and to the court which saved me time from having to go to court and in a few weeks the case got dismissed!" – James

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>>Read the FastCompany article: Debt Lawsuits Are Complicated: This Website Makes Them Simpler To Navigate