What an Albany County Court Docket Shows
A docket is the case index. It is not the case file. The docket lists each filed paper and each court event in order. Read it from oldest entry to newest. The most useful lines are the index or docket number, the filing date, the case caption, the judge or part, the docket entries, and the next appearance date.
Each Albany County court keeps its own dockets in its own system. Supreme Court civil cases use index numbers. County Court criminal cases use docket and indictment numbers. Surrogate's Court estate matters use file numbers. Family Court matters use petition numbers. Albany City Court cases use docket numbers. Town and village justice court matters use local docket numbers that may not appear in any state portal at all.
Some dockets are public. Some are sealed. Some are partly public and partly restricted under court rule.
Albany County Civil Court Dockets on WebCivil and NYSCEF
Supreme Court civil dockets in Albany County are searched through WebCivil tools and the New York State Courts Electronic Filing system. WebCivil Supreme covers Supreme Court civil cases statewide. WebCivil Local covers many lower-court civil filings. NYSCEF covers e-filed Supreme and County Court cases and provides docket entries, parties, judges, and where available, public PDFs.
Use the county filter to narrow results to Albany. Run the search with last name only if a full-name lookup returns nothing. Index numbers and case captions can vary across systems, so a docket that does not appear in one tool may appear in another.
| Field | What It Shows on a Civil Docket |
|---|---|
| Index Number | Year-based Supreme Court case identifier. |
| Case Caption | Plaintiff against defendant, or petitioner against respondent. |
| RJI Filed | Request for Judicial Intervention; date a justice is assigned. |
| Motion Sequence | Numbered motion entries with return dates. |
| Conferences | Preliminary, compliance, and status conference dates. |
| Orders and Judgments | Entered orders, decisions, and final judgments. |
Albany County Criminal Court Dockets on WebCrims
WebCrims is the main portal for criminal docket and appearance information in Albany County. It covers Albany County Court felony matters and Albany City Court misdemeanor and violation matters. Many town and village justice court tickets do not appear in WebCrims, so a ticket written outside the City of Albany may need a direct call to the local court.
A WebCrims search returns the defendant's case, the docket or indictment number, the next appearance date, the part, and the charge severity where available. A sealed case will not appear. A youthful offender case will not appear as a normal criminal docket. The Albany County arrest records page covers sealing rules in detail.
Surrogate's Court Dockets in Albany County
WebSurrogate is the portal for estate dockets. Albany County's Surrogate's Court at 16 Eagle Street hears probate of wills, administration without a will, accounting proceedings, guardianship matters, and adoption-related estate matters. Each proceeding gets a file number rather than an index number.
A docket entry in Surrogate's Court can include the probate petition, the original will, citations, waivers and consents, proof of service, decrees, letters testamentary or letters of administration, inventories, and accountings. Adoption files are sealed under Domestic Relations Law § 114, so adoption dockets are not public. Full coverage sits on the Surrogate's Court page.
Federal Court Dockets for Albany County
Federal cases in Albany County run through the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York. Federal court records are not part of any Albany County or state docket system. They live in their own system: CM/ECF for the Northern District and PACER. A federal docket entry will not appear in WebCrims or NYSCEF.
The Northern District homepage links to filing forms, the local rules, and the CM/ECF system used to view federal dockets.
CM/ECF is the docket and electronic filing system the court itself runs. PACER is the public-facing case-access service. A user who wants to see a federal docket entry in Albany usually logs into PACER and views the docket through the Northern District record.
The CM/ECF entry is the official login point for the Northern District's electronic docket.
PACER charges per-page fees for many document downloads. Some users qualify for fee exemptions. Free quarterly use is also possible up to a usage cap.
PACER lets a registered user search federal dockets in any U.S. district court, including Albany cases.
Bankruptcy dockets for Albany County residents go through the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of New York. Chapter 7, 11, 12, and 13 dockets each have their own structure, but all use the same CM/ECF and PACER tools.
The Bankruptcy Court site lists local rules, forms, and the path to bankruptcy docket searches through PACER.
Appeals from the Northern District of New York go to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. A federal appellate docket entry will not appear in any New York State portal.
The Second Circuit publishes opinions, oral-argument calendars, and rules of practice that govern appellate dockets in Albany cases.
Albany County Court Docket Glossary
Docket entries use short codes. The terms below appear most often in Albany County dockets.
- RJI
- Request for Judicial Intervention. The form that assigns a justice in Supreme Court civil cases.
- Index number
- The case identifier for Supreme Court civil matters. Assigned when the case is purchased and filed.
- Indictment
- Grand-jury charging instrument for felony prosecution in County Court or Supreme Court.
- SCI
- Superior Court Information; a charging instrument used when an indictment is waived.
- Motion sequence
- Numbered motion entries; each motion sequence has a return date.
- Part
- The court assignment or courtroom for a case. Each justice or judge runs a part.
- NOI / NOA
- Notice of Issue and Notice of Appeal. NOI signals readiness for trial; NOA starts an appeal.
Why an Albany County Docket May Be Missing
A name search can return no docket for several reasons. Sealed dispositions under CPL § 160.50 drop out of public view. Youthful offender cases under CPL § 720.35 are confidential. Family Court files are restricted under Family Court Act § 166. Matrimonial files are restricted under Domestic Relations Law § 235. Older paper dockets may not have been indexed online.
A missing docket is also possible when the case sits in a town or village justice court that does not feed WebCrims. The right move there is a direct call or visit to the local court named on the ticket or paperwork.
Note: A blank docket result is never proof a case does not exist; sealed, confidential, and offline records can all return no result.
Older Paper Dockets in Albany County
Online indexing only goes back so far. Albany County has held court since the 17th century, and most pre-digital dockets sit in paper file rooms, microfilm rolls, or off-site archive boxes. A user looking for a 1980s deed dispute, a 1970s estate file, or a 1960s civil judgment will not find a complete docket online. The Albany County Clerk handles many older Supreme and County Court records. Surrogate's Court holds older estate files at the courthouse.
Older paper dockets often need a manual clerk search. Plan for a fee, a wait, and a written request that lists names, approximate dates, case type, and the exact document needed. Clerks cannot pull a record without enough information to find it. A request that lists only "John Smith, sometime in the 1970s" will be returned with a request for more detail. The most useful inputs are the full legal name of each party, the year, the case type, and any case number that appears on a prior paper, deed, or letter.
Some older Albany County dockets that originated in town and village justice courts may have been transferred to the state or retained by the local municipality under court retention rules. A retention schedule may also limit how far back a file can be retrieved at all.
A Docket Is Not the Full Case File
People often ask for "the docket" when they really want the documents. The two are different. A docket is the running list of entries that tracks what happened in a case and when. The full case file is the stack of documents behind those entries. A docket entry might read "motion filed," while the motion itself is a separate paper that may or may not be public.
In Albany County the docket usually answers the timeline questions: when a case opened, what was filed, who appeared, and how it ended. The underlying documents answer the substance questions, and getting them can mean a clerk request or a NYSCEF download for e-filed civil cases. A certified copy of a judgment or order is yet another step, handled by the clerk rather than pulled from a portal.
| What You Want | Where to Get It |
|---|---|
| Case timeline and entries | The docket in the matching court portal. |
| An e-filed document | NYSCEF, where the case type is public. |
| A certified judgment or order | The court clerk that handled the case. |