In Indiana, the difference between a circuit court and a superior court is mostly structural rather than practical. Both are trial courts of general jurisdiction, meaning either one can hear felonies, civil suits, divorces, probate, and juvenile matters. What separates them is where they come from, how their judges are chosen, and how each county decides which court gets which cases.
Where Each Court Comes From
Circuit courts are written into the Indiana Constitution. Article 7 divides the state into judicial circuits, guarantees a judge for each one, and requires that judge to be a licensed attorney who lives in the circuit and serves a six-year term.1Justia. Indiana Constitution – Article 7 Because the constitution mandates them, circuit courts exist in every part of the state. There are roughly 90 circuits covering all 92 counties, since a few smaller counties share a circuit. Dearborn and Ohio counties, for example, share one.
Superior courts are created by the Indiana General Assembly through legislation. They exist only where lawmakers have decided the caseload justifies additional judges, and the legislature can add, reorganize, or eliminate them without amending the constitution. The General Assembly recently added superior court seats in fast-growing Hamilton County while cutting seats in counties where filings had dropped, using a weighted caseload system.2Indiana Judicial Branch. Learn About Indiana’s Court System That flexibility is the main structural advantage of a legislatively created court.
What Each Court Can Hear
If you’re expecting a clean split where one court handles crime and the other handles civil disputes, Indiana will disappoint you. Article 7, Section 8 gives circuit courts “such civil and criminal jurisdiction as may be prescribed by law,” and superior courts operate at essentially the same level. Indiana’s own judicial branch describes the differences between trial court types as products of “accidents of legislative history and local custom, not true differences in the nature or purpose of the courts.”2Indiana Judicial Branch. Learn About Indiana’s Court System
One caveat matters. When the legislature creates a specific superior court, it can narrow that court’s jurisdiction to certain case types or set up dedicated divisions for family law, small claims, or other specialties. Circuit courts, drawing their authority straight from the constitution, don’t get that kind of legislative fine-tuning.
How Counties Split the Caseload
This is where theory meets your filing decision. In counties that have both a circuit court and one or more superior courts, local administrative rules spell out which court hears which cases. These allocations vary widely, and they matter because filing in the wrong court means your case gets transferred rather than heard.
Scott County offers one illustration. Its local rules assign all felonies and misdemeanors to circuit court, while civil suits, divorces, small claims, and evictions go to superior court. Probate and guardianship stay in circuit court, but adoptions are routed to superior court. The county next door could divide things completely differently. To figure out where to file, check the local rules for the specific county; most counties post them through the Indiana courts website.
Superior courts tend to house more of Indiana’s specialized dockets, though circuit courts run them too. Small claims dockets handle disputes of $10,000 or less using simplified procedures.3Indiana General Assembly. Indiana Code 33-28-3-4 – Jurisdiction of Small Claims Docket Some counties operate family law divisions where the same judges handle divorce, custody, paternity, and support day in and day out. Problem-solving courts, including drug courts, veterans courts, and mental health courts, run in both circuit and superior courts depending on the county. Whether any of this is available in your area depends entirely on where you live. A large urban county may have several specialized divisions; a rural county may have one judge hearing everything from murder trials to estate fights.
How Judges Get on the Bench
Every Indiana trial court judge serves a six-year term, but the road to the bench differs by court and county.4Indiana Judicial Branch. Judicial Selection
Circuit court judges statewide are chosen in partisan elections. They appear on the ballot with party labels. When a circuit judge leaves mid-term, the governor appoints a replacement who then has to run in the next general election.
Superior court judges follow different paths depending on the county. In most of Indiana, they’re elected in partisan races too. But in Marion, Lake, and St. Joseph counties, superior court judges are chosen through merit selection. When a seat opens, lawyers apply, a local judicial nominating commission reviews and interviews the candidates, and finalists go to the governor for appointment.5Indiana Judicial Branch. Marion County Judicial Selection Committee Those judges later face voters in retention elections, which ask only whether the judge should keep the seat, with no challenger on the ballot. The nominating commission also periodically evaluates sitting judges before retention votes.6Indiana Judicial Branch. Marion County Judicial Retention 2026 Allen and Hamilton counties use a hybrid, where merit selection fills mid-term vacancies but regular elections fill seats at the end of full terms.
The effect is real. In partisan-election counties, judicial races can turn political. In merit-selection counties, judges are insulated from campaign pressure, and voters have less direct say over who takes the bench.
How Appeals Work From Either Court
Appeals from circuit and superior courts follow the same route. A Notice of Appeal must be filed within 30 days after the trial court enters its final judgment, and the case goes to the Indiana Court of Appeals.7Indiana Judicial Branch. Appellate Clerk’s Office Frequently Asked Questions The trial court prepares the record, both sides file written briefs, and the Court of Appeals reviews the case for legal error. It doesn’t retry the facts or hear new evidence.
If the Court of Appeals decision doesn’t end things, the losing party can ask the Indiana Supreme Court to take the case by filing a Petition to Transfer within 45 days.8Indiana Judicial Branch. Indiana Rules of Appellate Procedure Unlike the Court of Appeals, which must hear every properly filed appeal, the Supreme Court picks its cases and focuses on significant legal questions or constitutional issues.
A Note on City and Town Courts
Indiana has a third type of trial court that sometimes gets folded into this comparison by mistake. City and town courts have limited jurisdiction, primarily handling local ordinance violations, misdemeanors, and infractions.9Indiana General Assembly. Indiana Code 33-35-2-8 – Town Courts Jurisdiction They don’t handle major civil litigation, felonies, or family law. Appeals from them go up to the circuit or superior court, not directly to the Court of Appeals. If your matter is anything beyond a traffic ticket or ordinance issue, you’ll be in a circuit or superior court, and the questions above are the ones that matter.