Search online public court records from Wisconsin state courts for free. UniCourt allows you to lookup civil, family law, probate, small claims, labour, personal injury and other cases from Wisconsin Superior Courts, Justice Courts, Circuit Courts, & more. With UniCourt, you can look up Wisconsin State Court cases, find latest docket information, view case summary, check case status, download court documents, as well as track cases and get alerts on new filings.
At UniCourt, you can look up Wisconsin State Court records by case name, case number, party, attorney, judge, case type, docket entry & more. You can filter search results further by date of filing, jurisdiction, case type, party type, party representation, and more.
The State of Wisconsin is home to over 5.8 million people and has an area of 65,498 square miles. Wisconsin does not share a geographic border with Canada, but does have customs facilities due to its location on the Great Lakes, which provide access to Canada. The state capital is Madison and the most populous single city in the state is Milwaukee. However, the metropolitan area centered around Milwaukee, including Waukesha and West Allis, has a population of over 1.5 million people.
The Wisconsin Courts are made up of trial courts, a Court of Appeals, and a Supreme Court.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court is the state's highest court and is composed of seven justices, including one Chief Justice. The Supreme Court has appellate jurisdiction over all Wisconsin courts and has discretion to determine which cases it will review. The Court may hear original actions, which are cases that have not been heard before in another Wisconsin court. Additionally, the Court has administrative and regulatory authority over all Wisconsin courts and the lawyers who practice law in the state.
Wisconsin Supreme Court Justices are chosen in statewide elections on the nonpartisan April ballot, for a term of 10 years. The Wisconsin Constitution provides that only one justice can be elected in any single year. In the event of a vacancy, the governor may appoint a person to serve until an election can be held to fill the seat.
The number of matters brought before the Wisconsin Supreme Court each year averages around 800. The Wisconsin Supreme Court has been involved with many important cases in U.S. jurisprudence, including In Re: Booth, Chamberlain v. Milwaukee and Mississippi Railroad Company, and State v. Mitchell.
The Wisconsin Court of Appeals is the state’s intermediate appellate court and has locations in Milwaukee, Waukesha, Wausau, and Madison. According to the Wisconsin Legislature, the Court of Appeals has supervisory authority over all actions and proceedings in lower courts. The Court hears the majority of appeals in three judge panels, but appeals of Circuit Court decisions involving misdemeanor, small claims, and municipal ordinance cases are decided by a single judge.
The Wisconsin Court of Appeals is composed of 16 judges, who are elected to six year terms from four geographic areas across the state know as Districts.
District I contains only Milwaukee County, while District II covers Calumet, Fond du Lac, Green Lake, Kenosha, Manitowoc, Ozaukee, Racine, Sheboygan, Walworth, Washington, Waukesha, and Winnebago counties. District III contains contains Ashland, Barron, Bayfield, Brown, Buffalo, Burnett, Chippewa, Door, Douglas, Dunn, Eau Claire, Florence, Forest, Iron, Kewaunee, Langlade, Lincoln, Marathon, Marinette, Menominee, Oconto, Oneida, Outagamie, Pepin, Pierce, Polk, Price, Rusk, Sawyer, Shawano, St. Croix, Taylor, Trempealeau, Vilas, and Washburn counties. The final district, District IV, includes Adams, Clark, Columbia, Crawford, Dane, Dodge, Grant, Green, Iowa, Jackson, Jefferson, Juneau, La Crosse, Lafayette, Marquette, Monroe, Portage, Richland, Rock, Sauk, Vernon, Waupaca, Waushara, and Wood counties.
To be eligible to be a Wisconsin Court of Appeals judge, a person must be a qualified elector of Wisconsin and must have been licensed to practice law in the state for at least five years.
Wisconsin has two separate trial courts, consisting of the Circuit Courts and the Municipal Courts.
Established in 1977, the Wisconsin Circuit Courts are the state’s trial courts. The Circuit Courts have original jurisdiction in all civil and criminal matters within the state, including probate cases, juvenile issues, traffic matters, and civil and criminal jury trials.
The Circuit Courts are divided into branches, with at least one branch in every county. However, six counties are paired and share judges: Buffalo and Pepin, Florence and Forest, and Shawano and Menominee. There are currently 257 judges in the Circuit Courts. Milwaukee County is the largest county with 47 judges.
Judges in the Wisconsin Circuit Courts are elected in nonpartisan elections to serve six year terms. To remain on the court, they must run for re-election after their term expires. The Chief Judge of each Circuit Court is chosen by the state Supreme Court to serve for two years.
Cities, villages, or municipalities in Wisconsin can establish a Municipal Court. These courts have exclusive jurisdiction over ordinance violations. If a municipality does not have a Municipal Court, ordinance violations are heard in Circuit Court. In Municipal Courts, all cases are decided by a judge, not a jury. However, a person charged with a first drunk driving offense may seek a jury trial in Circuit Court within ten days of an initial Municipal Court appearance.
In February 2021, there were 229 Municipal Courts and 232 Municipal Court judges in the state. There are 79 joint courts that serve two to eighteen municipalities. The largest Municipal Court is in Milwaukee, with three full-time judges.
The Wisconsin Judicial Commission investigates and prosecutes allegations of misconduct or disability on the part of Wisconsin judges and court commissioners in order to protect the integrity of the judicial process and to preserve public confidence in the courts.
The Commission states that its mission “is to hold Wisconsin judges and court commissioners accountable for violations of the Wisconsin Code of Judicial Conduct while maintaining the independence of the judiciary so necessary to the proper functioning of a democracy.”
The Judicial Commission has 9 members. The members of the Commission include: five nonlawyers nominated by the Governor and appointed by the State Senate; two judges, one from the trial courts and one from the Court of Appeals; and two members of the State Bar of Wisconsin, who are not judges or court commissioners, appointed by the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
UniCourt is your single source for state and federal court records, offering comprehensive court coverage and the most complete and accurate dataset available.
Everyday of the week, UniCourt collects all of the newly filed civil and criminal cases in the Wisconsin Courts we cover and lets you search through those new case filings in our CrowdSourced Library™. You can also use UniCourt to track state court litigation and get real-time case alerts sent directly to your inbox. Additionally, UniCourt empowers you to download court documents on-demand without ever having to login to a government court database, and gives you unlimited access to download millions of free state and federal court documents in our CrowdSourced Library™.
UniCourt provides you with access to several Wisconsin State Courts, including many of the largest counties across the state, such as the Milwaukee County Courts, the Dane County Courts, the Waukesha County Courts, the Brown County Courts, and the Racine County Courts.
UniCourt also gives you access to court records for all of the federal courts across the state of Wisconsin.