Under Washington State Court General Rule (GR) 31, court records are records relating to court proceedings and are to be made available to the public, subject to exceptions. To learn how to request court records please visit “How to Request Court Records” below.  Court records are not the same as public records as governed by the Public Records Act, Revised Code of Washington (RCW) 42.56.010.

The Public Records Act defines a public record as "any writing containing information relating to the conduct of government or the performance of any governmental or proprietary function prepared, owned, used, or retained by any state or local agency regardless of physical form or characteristics.” Essentially, this means that the Clerk's Office must keep record of any document that relates to how the Clerk's Office conducts business and that any person can request those public records.

When making your public disclosure request, the more information you provide to us regarding what type of record you are searching for, the more swiftly we will be able to provide a response. However, when requesting public records, asking for a broad spectrum of results such as “any” or “all” can take much longer to respond to. To learn how to make your request, please visit the “How to Submit a Public Disclosure Request” section below.

Per GR 33, an accommodation request will be granted to any qualified person for whom an accommodation is reasonable and necessary. Learn how to submit an accommodation request here.