Search Lawrence County Court Records
Lawrence County Circuit and District Court records are maintained by the Circuit Clerk, Sandra Parker Ligon. The clerk's official page points users to Alacourt ACCESS / Just One Look for on-demand Alabama State Trial Court Records and notes that service fees are required. That portal is the main online route for many Lawrence County court records, but it does not replace the clerk's office for certified copies, older files, restricted files, or records that are not available through paid public access.
Start by matching the record to the court. Circuit Court includes felony criminal cases, domestic relations and divorce filings, larger civil cases, and appeals from lower courts. District Court includes traffic, small claims, district civil, many misdemeanors, preliminary hearings, and warrant-magistrate matters. Probate Court handles estates, wills, guardianships, conservatorships, marriage-license and recording functions. Municipal courts may hold city ordinance, city traffic, and city misdemeanor matters.
- Identify the case type, court division, party names, approximate year, and any case or citation number.
- Use Alacourt ACCESS / Just One Look for eligible Circuit and District Court docket information.
- Select Lawrence County and narrow by court, division, date range, case number, or party name where the portal allows it.
- Read the result as a docket index first, then decide whether a certified copy or full document is needed.
- Contact the Circuit Clerk, Probate Judge, Sheriff, or municipal court when the portal does not hold the record.
The public-access portal assigned to this home page is Alacourt ACCESS, the on-demand lookup route named by the Lawrence County Circuit Clerk.
Alacourt helps with many trial-court searches, but Lawrence County users still need the Circuit Clerk for official copies and records that do not appear online.
Lawrence County Court System
Lawrence County is in Alabama's Thirty-Sixth Judicial Circuit. The official judges page lists Presiding Circuit Judge Callie Waldrep and District Judge Angela D. Terry. The Circuit Clerk supports both Circuit Court and District Court proceedings from the Judicial and Administrative Center in Moulton. Appeals from trial courts route by subject matter to the Alabama Court of Civil Appeals or Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals, with discretionary review possible in the Alabama Supreme Court.
| Court or office | Local contact | Records and case types |
|---|---|---|
| Circuit Court | Hon. Callie Waldrep | Felonies, domestic relations, larger civil cases, lower-court appeals. |
| District Court | Hon. Angela D. Terry | Traffic, small claims, district civil, misdemeanors, preliminary hearings, warrants. |
| Circuit Clerk | Sandra Parker Ligon | Record keeper and business manager for Circuit and District Court files. |
| Probate Court | Lawrence County Probate Judge | Estates, wills, guardianships, conservatorships, marriage-license and recording functions. |
| Municipal Courts | City-specific courts | Ordinance violations, municipal traffic, and many city misdemeanor matters. |
Case path: Municipal or District Court › Circuit Court appeal where allowed › Alabama appellate court by subject matter.
Lawrence County Courthouse Contacts
The main public court functions are grouped in the Lawrence County Judicial and Administrative Center at 14451 Market Street in Moulton. Suite numbers matter. The Circuit Clerk is in Suite 300, the Presiding Circuit Judge is in Suite 230, and the District Judge is in Suite 200. The court site lists Circuit Clerk public contact at (256) 974-2432 and court-site hours as 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. The Probate Judge page lists county/probate hours as Monday-Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Judicial and Administrative Center
14451 Market Street, Suite 300
Moulton, AL 35650
(256) 974-2432
District Court
14451 Market Street, Suite 200
Moulton, AL 35650
(256) 974-2450
Traffic, small claims, district civil, and misdemeanor matters.
Warrant Magistrate
Call before appointment
Moulton, AL 35650
(256) 974-2438
Incident report required before warrant appointment.
Lawrence County Court Record Types
Lawrence County court records vary by division. Civil files may include complaints, answers, motions, service returns, orders, judgments, garnishments, executions, and appeals. Small claims cases use a simpler District Court process for claims up to $6,000. Criminal files may show charges, warrants or summonses, bonds, pleas, dispositions, sentencing, probation terms, fines, costs, and docket events. Traffic records may show a citation number, offense, court date, fine, plea, failure-to-appear status, driving-school result, and disposition.
Domestic relations records are Circuit Court files. The local page says divorces are complex, especially with children, and that the clerk cannot give legal advice. Protection from Abuse cases may include petitions, temporary orders, service by sheriff, hearings, and final orders, but victim address information may be deleted from the record. Juvenile files are named as a clerk division, but Alabama juvenile legal and social records are confidential and should not be treated like ordinary public dockets.
- Civil and small claims: district civil, claims up to $20,000 in the local chart, small claims up to $6,000, and post-judgment collection entries.
- Criminal and warrants: misdemeanor or felony pathways, warrants, summonses, charges, bonds, pleas, dispositions, and sentencing entries.
- Traffic: District Court citations, payment status, trial requests, no-insurance rules, and defensive-driving outcomes.
- Family and divorce: domestic-relations filings, child-support orders, decrees, modifications, and enforcement filings.
- Probate: estates, wills, guardianships, conservatorships, marriage records, recording, and related county records.
What Lawrence County Records Show
A Lawrence County case record usually begins as a docket. The docket is the chronological event list, not always the full document packet. It may identify the case number, court division, parties, filing date, service date, hearing dates, assigned judge, motions, orders, judgments, financial entries, and disposition. In civil cases, Lawrence County pages note that the clerk processes forms, assigns a case number, and mails service-date information instead of checking service by phone.
| Field | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Case number | The identifier assigned after clerk processing and used for all contact with the court. |
| Court or division | Circuit Civil, District Civil, Small Claims, Domestic Relations, Traffic, Criminal, Juvenile, Warrants, or another division. |
| Parties | Plaintiff and defendant, petitioner and respondent, or State and defendant depending on case type. |
| Docket entries | Filing, service issued, answer due, hearing set, motion filed, judgment, appeal, garnishment, execution, or disposition. |
| Financial entries | Filing fees, court costs, fines, bond, subpoena fee, garnishment fee, traffic amount, or restitution where public. |
| Restrictions | Redactions for juvenile matters, sealed records, expunged records, PFA victim addresses, and sensitive identifiers. |
Lawrence County Public Access Laws
Alabama public access begins with the general public-writing rule, but court records also carry special limits. A Lawrence County court record may be viewable, partly redacted, absent from public search, or available only by court order depending on the record type. Start with the office that owns the file, then apply the public-access rule and the confidentiality rule that fits the case.
Key Statutes:
Alabama Code Section 36-12-40 gives Alabama citizens a broad right to inspect and copy public writings, subject to lawful limits.
Alabama Code Section 12-15-133 makes juvenile legal and social records confidential.
Alabama Code Section 15-27-1 is part of Alabama's expungement law for certain criminal records.
Alabama Code Section 30-5-1 begins the Protection from Abuse Act framework.
Restricted Lawrence County Records
Restricted records are not gaps in a search tool. They reflect legal limits. Juvenile records are confidential under Alabama law. Expunged records should not be described as available through normal public lookup. Adoption, mental-health, sealed, and some family-related records may require statutory authority or a court order. The Lawrence County PFA page also says temporary orders may delete the victim's home address, work address, phone number, and related information from records filed with the court.
Warrants have a local public-access rule that should guide any Lawrence County warrant search. The magistrate page states that an arrest warrant is not a matter of public record until it is served. A person who suspects a warrant has been issued is instructed to appear in person at the Lawrence County Sheriff's Department. No official online active-warrant list was verified in the research file.
Lawrence County Specialty Workflows
No official Lawrence County treatment-court page for drug court, veterans court, mental-health court, DUI court, family treatment court, or reentry court was located in the inspected official sources. The local court site does publish specialized workflows that affect records: Protection from Abuse, Child Support, Traffic Court, and Magistrates & Warrants. Those are not specialty courts in the treatment-court sense, but they are the local procedural pages a records user is likely to need.
Protection from Abuse is the strongest special workflow. It covers who may file, who may be protected, temporary and final orders, sheriff service, hearings, evidence, confidentiality, and violation consequences. Traffic Court has a defensive-driving pathway for eligible offenses marked with an asterisk on the local fine table. The District Judge must approve it, the defendant must appear on the ticket date, and online classes are not allowed by the local page.
Lawrence County Sheriff and Jail
The Lawrence County Sheriff's Office is the local law-enforcement and jail contact. No official Lawrence County online jail roster with public inmate profile pages was verified in the official sources inspected, so county-jail users should not rely on a made-up roster URL. For new arrests and pretrial custody, contact the Sheriff's Office or jail through the official county sheriff page. For sentenced state-prison inmates, use Alabama Department of Corrections. For custody notifications, use VINELink if data is available. For sex-offender registry records, use ALEA's public search.
The Sheriff also appears in warrant and PFA workflows. The warrant page requires an incident or offense report before a magistrate appointment, and the PFA page says the clerk gives signed temporary orders, petitions, and hearing notices to the Sheriff's Department for service. Arrest, jail, warrant, and court-charge records often overlap, but they are not the same file.
Marriage Divorce and Probate
Marriage records and divorce records live in different places. Marriage license and certificate work is tied to the Probate Judge and Alabama Department of Public Health. Divorce cases are domestic-relations files in Circuit Court. ADPH provides certified certificates, while the Circuit Clerk is the source for the divorce case file, pleadings, orders, and decree. Probate records are separate from Circuit Clerk case records and include wills, estates, letters, guardianships, conservatorships, recording, and related county functions.
For a marriage or divorce certificate, ADPH may be the right certificate channel. For a divorce decree or case packet, contact the Circuit Clerk. For estate, guardianship, conservatorship, recording, or marriage-license records, start with the Probate Judge and its official online services or fee sheet.
Lawrence County Court Fees
Lawrence County publishes several exact fee examples through local court pages. Copy and certification fees were not fully captured in the research file, so those should be confirmed with the office before sending money. Traffic and filing amounts can also change, and the Probate Judge's 2025 fee sheet is a scanned official PDF that should be checked for probate and recording matters.
| Item | Amount or note |
|---|---|
| District civil filing, one defendant, $6,000.01-$20,000 | $291.00 |
| Small claims filing up to $1,500 | $56.00 |
| Small claims filing $1,500.01-$3,000 | $130.00 |
| Small claims filing $3,000.01-$6,000 | $219.00 |
| Domestic relations docket fee | $233.00 |
| Subpoena | $17.00 per subpoena |
| Garnishment or execution | $35.00 |
| No-insurance ticket with insurance bought after citation | $204.00 court cost with proof of insurance |
Read Lawrence County Dockets
Several terms appear across Lawrence County records. A plaintiff files a civil claim. A defendant is sued or charged. Service is formal delivery of papers. A disposition is the final outcome. A default judgment may be entered if a defendant fails to answer. Garnishment and writ of execution are post-judgment collection tools. A magistrate reviews probable cause for a warrant or summons. Expungement is a legal restriction process for qualifying criminal records, not a routine edit to a public web page.
- Docket
- A chronological case-event list.
- Disposition
- The result of a charge, claim, motion, petition, or case.
- Certified copy
- A clerk-issued copy with official certification for legal or agency use.
- Probable cause
- The legal threshold a magistrate reviews before issuing an arrest warrant or summons.
Accuracy and Record Limits
Online records may lag behind counter records, and not every record image is public. Lawrence County pages include practical warnings that are easy to miss: the clerk cannot give legal advice, small-claims and district civil parties should not call for service dates, judgments do not guarantee collection, subpoenas need time for service, traffic court dates are not trial dates, and personal checks are not accepted for many traffic payments. These details are part of real record access because they affect whether a case moves, defaults, appeals, or produces a warrant.
Note: Confirm active deadlines, payment rules, and certified-copy costs with the originating Lawrence County office before relying on online data.
Lawrence County Court History
Lawrence County's present court identity is tied to Moulton as the county seat and to the Thirty-Sixth Judicial Circuit of Alabama. The modern Judicial and Administrative Center groups court and county administrative work at 14451 Market Street. The Circuit Clerk page says court records are electronically imaged for judges, clerks, and public availability where allowed. The court homepage also preserves COVID-era administrative orders from 2020 and 2021, including a May 17, 2021 order on resumption of full court operations.
Lawrence County Court FAQ
Where are Lawrence County Court records searched online?
Many Circuit and District Court records start with Alacourt ACCESS / Just One Look, the paid statewide trial-court portal named by the Circuit Clerk. Certified copies, restricted files, older records, and records not shown online require the correct clerk or office.
Does Lawrence County have an online warrant list?
No official online active-warrant list was verified in the research file. The local magistrate page says an arrest warrant is not public until served and instructs a person who suspects a warrant to appear in person at the Sheriff's Department.
Are marriage and divorce records in the same office?
No. Marriage records and license functions are probate and vital-record matters. Divorce files are Circuit Court domestic-relations records, while ADPH provides state certificate channels.
Can the Circuit Clerk give legal advice?
No. The official court site says the clerk can provide procedural information, but the law prohibits the clerk from giving legal advice.