Stories

VCU Health Will Halt Patient Lawsuits, Boost Aid In Wake Of KHN Investigation, Kaiser Health News, Jay Hancock and Elizabeth Lucas, Oct 9, 2019

'UVA has ruined us': Health system sues thousands of patients, seizing paychecks and putting liens on homes, The Washington Post, Jay Hancock and Elizabeth Lucas, Sep 9, 2019

A New Lawsuit Against a Virginia Apartment Complex Shows How Modern Day Redlining Works, The Root, Anne Branigin, Jun 4, 2019

Richmond's public housing authority filed eviction lawsuits against 1 out of 4 tenants last year, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Ned Oliver, Apr 27, 2018

Court data shows how common medical debt is, The Northern Virginia Daily, Max Lee, Feb 16, 2018

Uncovering Big Bias with Big Data, Lawyerist.com, David Colarusso, May 31, 2016

Blacks more likely to get prison time in plea deals, Hampton Roads court data show, Dave Ress, Daily Press, March 17, 2016

Guns: Hampton Roads court records show many gun law violators get a pass, Dave Ress, Daily Press, March 15, 2016

Courts records show many crimes, but few prison terms, Dave Ress, Daily Press, March 12, 2016

Pattern of settling lawsuits against Roanoke-area hospitals makes them hard to find, Laurence Hammack, Roanoke Times, October 11, 2015

Racial disparities exists in probation violation penalties, reports show, Dave Ress, Daily Press, March 29, 2015

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Open Data

This website is an independent, private effort, created and run as a hobby, and is in no way affiliated with the Commonwealth of Virginia or Virginia's Court System. We hope that the state will begin releasing court data in bulk so that we don't have to.

Court Data and the 2017 Session of the General Assembly

Why it’s difficult to get court data in Virginia

Check Medium for more news and amateur data analysis.

Details

Last Update

April 7, 2021

All cases heard through the end of 2020 have been added. District Civil data from Q1 of 2021 is available in the database format.

Format

Downloads are compressed comma separated value (CSV) files, which can be unzipped and easily imported into software like Google Sheets, Microsoft Excel, and Microsoft Access. If there are more than 250,000 cases, they will be broken up into multiple files for ease of use. If you want a smaller subset of data or you need help using the data, get in touch with me on Twitter or Email.

Fields

Detailed information about the fields in these files can be found in this Medium post.

Anonymized

Case numbers, names, and dates of birth have been removed. If you have a specific need for the original data, please log in below.

Even in the full dataset, the date of birth does not include the year of birth becuase it is censored on the state's website.

Incomplete Circuit Court Data

Alexandria and Fairfax are not available.

Duplicate Cases

In April of 2019, about 100,000 duplicate cases were removed from the data set. More details here.

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