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A-Z How to Find Information >  Law and Your Rights > How can I find a report of a court case?

• If the case is 1996 or later, or a leading case from earlier years, the first thing to try is a search on BAILLI (British and Irish Legal Information Institute). For further details of the cases available on that site see What case law can I find on BAILLI? on the site's Frequently Asked Questions page
• If a High Court judgement is not available on BAILII, then, according to Gov.UK, you can Apply for a transcript of a court or tribunal hearing (if the records are still available). For contact details, see the HMCTS Find a Court or Tribunal and select 'Royal Courts of Justice' (the High Court is part of the Royal Courts of Justice).
• You could also try entering the basic case details into a search engine. Enter the names of both parties in quotation marks, as in this example "J. Smith v A. N. Other". If you have other details, such as the date, or the law report reference, enter those details too, outside the quotation marks, as in this example "J. Smith v A. N. Other" 1974
• For county courts and magistrates courts, see The Register of Judgments, Orders and Fines which provides, for a fee, basic information on county court judgments, county court administration orders, Magistrates' court fines and CSA liability orders. It also has High Court judgments registered after 6th April 2006.
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Page last updated: 1st December 2020