Understanding Public Court Case Records in Oklahoma
What kind of information about your court cases can be found online? Hi, my name is Carl Birkhead. I’m an attorney with Wirth Law Office in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I’ve been practicing family and criminal law for eight years now. I want to help make law easy by talking to you about what type of information can be found about your case online, specifically on the two websites that Oklahoma attorneys and anyone in Oklahoma can use most often, which are OSCN and ODCR.
So these two websites both report just about every case that gets filed in the state. ODCR stands for On-Demand Court Records. And then the other one, OSCN, which most attorneys use, and it’s a lot more user-friendly, in my opinion, is OSCN. It’s the Oklahoma Supreme Court Network.
The Utility of OSCN for Case Research
Okay, so OSCN is what I’m going to be talking about today because that’s what I typically use whenever I’m trying to look up a case. And you guys, you can find anything on there. I mean, we’re talking about misdemeanors, felonies, traffic citations, divorces, lawsuits, probates, real estate disputes, pretty much anything that isn’t an adoption, a guardianship, or a juvenile-deprived case.
Those are the big three. Those records are sealed. They’re closed proceedings, and so those records are not available online. You can’t even type in a case number and expect anything to get pulled up. But beyond that, y’all, it’s anything goes.
How to Find Your Case Information
So here’s an example. Let’s say I get a brand-new case, and it’s a protective order case. I don’t know anything about the case. I don’t know anything about the people. All I need to know is a name, first and last name. The middle name is helpful. I mean, if you’re dealing with a first and last name, and the first and last are John Smith, it’d be nice to know if it was a John Wayne Smith versus a John Zachary Smith or something like that.
But really, all you need is the first and last name and the county that you’re looking for. Or if you’re just trying to look for something that may or may not have popped up in the state, you can do an entire statewide search on the name alone and find every case that comes up under that name.
Why It’s Important to Be Proactive
So in this particular instance, let’s say John Smith hires me, wants me to do his protective order of defense. I need to know what has been filed against him, what the allegations are. All I have to do is look it up, go in, and run his first and last name. I can find the case. Usually, I can find the petition online and just download it, and read everything that was ever alleged against my imaginary client.
And even if I can’t get it offline, all I would have to do is go to the courthouse with the case number, and I can get any record that was ever filed in that case. So be very, very aware. If you’re facing any sort of legal problems or you’re looking at a legal battle coming up, be aware of the fact that it’s findable. It’s very easily findable for anyone who has just the random itch to look you up online. That information’s out there.
Take Control of Your Legal Journey
If you have questions about this, give me a call. My name is Carl Birkhead. I’m with Wirth Law Office, and I want to help you make law easy. To get started, we offer a low-cost initial strategy session. Call us today at 918-879-1681 to learn more.
