How to Search the Alamance County Court Docket by Name

You can run an Alamance County court docket search by name for free through the North Carolina eCourts Portal at nccourts.gov, or in person at the Alamance County courthouse. North Carolina law requires the Clerk of Superior Court in every county to keep case records open for public inspection, indexed by the names of all parties in civil cases and all defendants in criminal cases.¹

Search the eCourts Portal Online

The Portal is the North Carolina Judicial Branch’s public search tool, and it covers every county in the state.² Open the Portal and choose Smart Search. Set the location filter to Alamance County. Then open Advanced Filtering Options and enter the name under Party Search Criteria.

Smart Search lets you filter by case type as well, including criminal actions, civil actions, special proceedings, and estates.² Choosing the right category before you search saves time. A traffic charge or assault case falls under criminal actions; a contract dispute lands in civil. You can also narrow by case status or filing date range, which matters when a common name pulls dozens of hits.

One caveat worth noting up front: the North Carolina Judicial Branch specifically advises anyone conducting a background check to use the clerk’s office rather than the Portal.³

Get the Spelling and Filters Right

Spelling matters more than people expect. A search for “Steven” will not return a case filed under “Stephen,” and a missing hyphen in a compound last name can wipe the results out completely. When you are not sure of the spelling, the Portal accepts wildcard searches using an asterisk. For a last name, enter at least three characters followed by the asterisk; for a first name, one character plus the asterisk is enough.² Searching “Joh*” as a last name returns Johnson, Johnston, and Johansen at the same time.

Adding a middle initial or a suffix like Jr. or Sr. helps narrow results when the name is common. Date of birth is also available as a search filter. These extra identifiers are the difference between a clean, fast search and twenty minutes of scrolling.

What a Case Record Shows

Clicking a case number opens the Case Summary, sometimes called the Register of Actions. It’s a chronological timeline of everything that has happened in the case.² The record is broken into sections:

Case Information, with the case type, filing date, and current status.
Party Information, listing plaintiffs, defendants, and their attorneys.
Case Events, a log of every filing, motion, and order.
Hearings, showing past and upcoming court dates with courtroom assignments.
Dispositions, the outcome if the case has been resolved.
Financial Information, covering any fines, fees, or restitution.

Case status will read “Pending” for active matters or “Disposed” for cases that have concluded.²

Search In Person at the Courthouse

The Alamance County Clerk of Superior Court’s office keeps public-access computer terminals available for searching court records. You can look up cases by defendant name, case number, or even victim or witness name, and viewing the information on screen is free.³ The clerk’s office phone number is (336) 570-5200.

As of mid-2025, Alamance County is among the first counties in the state to receive eCourts kiosks. These stations run the same Portal search tools as the older terminals and also handle document scanning, printing, electronic filing, and payments in one place.⁴

Viewing records costs nothing, but copies are not free. The clerk’s office charges $2.00 for the first page of a copied document and $0.25 for each additional page. A certified copy with the official seal is $3.00.⁵ Payment is generally required at the time of the request.

What Won’t Show Up in a Search

Not every case surfaces in a name search. North Carolina allows people to petition for expunction, a legal process that removes a criminal charge or conviction from someone’s record and seals the associated files. Once granted, the arrest and charge entries are cleared from public databases, and the person can legally deny the arrest in most situations.⁶

Juvenile records follow a separate expunction process and generally do not appear in public searches at all.⁶ A clean search result, then, doesn’t necessarily mean a person has no history. Prior records may have been expunged, or the charges may have been filed in a different county.

If You’re Running a Background Check

Employers and landlords routinely pull court records for screening, but federal law limits how the information can be used. Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, an employer using a consumer report that includes court records for a hiring decision must first provide a standalone written disclosure that a background check will be conducted, and the applicant must authorize it in writing.⁷

If the employer decides not to hire someone based on what the report shows, the FCRA requires a two-step process. Before the final decision, the employer must give the applicant a copy of the report and a written summary of their rights, then allow time to dispute inaccurate information. Only after that waiting period can the adverse decision go through. Skipping either step exposes the employer to liability, so a do-it-yourself docket search that bypasses these requirements can create legal problems for the person doing the screening.⁷

For that reason, the North Carolina Judicial Branch points background-check users to the clerk’s office instead of the Portal. Clerk’s office staff can help confirm the records belong to the right person, which matters when two people share a similar name and a job could be on the line.³

1
North Carolina General Assembly. North Carolina Code 7A-109 – Record-Keeping Procedures
2
North Carolina Judicial Branch. Portal Training and Resources
3
North Carolina Judicial Branch. Obtaining Court Records
4
North Carolina Judicial Branch. eCourts Kiosks Deploy to NC Courthouses with Scanners, Printers, Payment Services for the Public June 2025
5
North Carolina General Assembly. North Carolina Code 7A-308 – Miscellaneous Fees and Commissions
6
North Carolina Judicial Branch. Expunctions
7
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. United States Code Title 15 Section 1681b – Permissible Purposes of Consumer Reports