|
Welcome to the Court Public Records Help Page for the Office of the Clerk of the Circuit Court and Comptroller for Pinellas County, Florida.
We are in the process of
implementing a new court case management system. During this time we will be converting
many years of court records to the new system one court area at a time.
The first area to transfer is Civil
Court Records in September of 2012 with other court areas to be added in
2013 and 2014.
Navigation:
Navigation on this site is performed primarily through hyperlink text.
Selecting any hyperlink will take the user to the option described. Footer links are to associated
external sites that are directly related to court records.
Getting Started:
The opening menu provides links to court areas or services provided.
As records for each court area are migrated to this new case
management system, additional options will appear on the opening page. To access court records that have not yet
been converted, click
here and choose either guest or subscriber access.
To begin, select the court area
that contains the court information that you require.
Searching Records:
Next, choose the data field which you wish to conduct the search. Civil, Family and Case Records
may be searched on case number, party name, attorney, or the date filed.
Other court areas, as they are moved to this new system, may have additional fields on which they may be searched.
Case number or name searches support the use of the * wildcard. Basic use of the * wildcard is to place it at the point in a name or case number you wish to
replacing specific values with wildcard values. For instance:
In this case, the results will return any name that exactly matches the last name and any first name that begins with the letter "B" and ends
with any additional value. Last names must have at least three letters and case numbers at least four digits in order to use the wildcard feature. The * wildcard may not be used if the soundex feature is selected.
Soundex is a valuable feature that instructs the system to automatically return names on your search that would sound the same as what you have entered even if the name is spelled differently. For instance, entering the
last name "Smith" might also return results that would include the last name "Smythe."
Although use of soundex and wildcards can be very helpful in searching records where only partial information on the record may be available, their use can cause problems in the sheer number or results returned.
A query on the name John Smith would return thousands of results from our database, which contains many millions of records. Vague searches cause the system to slow down and may affect the performance of the system for yourself
or other users. Therefore, only a limited number of results (1000) will be returned from large data sets. Any search that returns more than 1000 results will not display more than that number. If the
information you are searching for is not contained within the first 1000 results returned, you must refine your search to include more detailed information. Limiting the use of soundex or wildcards, adding a complete first name or
middle name, or specifying a case type are good ways to return a more limited set of results for your search.
Selecting the hyperlink on the case number you choose from the results set will open a Case Summary screen detailing information about the case you have selected to view.
|
