Harris County Court Records Scraper

Extract probate and civil court records from the Harris County (TX) District Clerk public search portal (hcdistrictclerk.com).

Search by party name or filing date range. Returns case number, case style, court, filing date, case type, case status, and the matched party's role.

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What you get

Each result row contains:

Field	Description
caseNumber	Case (cause) number — unique identifier
caseUrl	Link to the case detail page on hcdistrictclerk.com
caseStyle	Full case title (e.g. Smith v. Jones (Civ))
court	Court number
filedDate	Date the case was filed (M/D/YYYY)
caseType	Case/offense type (e.g. NOTE, INSURANCE POLICY)
caseStatus	Status indicator from case number (Purged, Active, Disposed)
parties	Matched party name and role (e.g. DEFENDANT - JOHN SMITH)
scrapedAt	ISO-8601 timestamp of extraction

Note: Attorney details and full filing history are available on the linked case detail pages, which require a registered hcdistrictclerk.com account to access directly. This actor extracts all fields available from the public search results.

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Input

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
searchMode	string	party_name	party_name or date_range
partyName	string	—	Party to search. Format: LastName, FirstName or last name only. Required for party_name mode.
partyRole	string	A	A = All, D = Defendant, P = Plaintiff
dateFrom	string	—	Start date MM/DD/YYYY. Required for date_range mode.
dateTo	string	—	End date MM/DD/YYYY. Defaults to today.
courtId	string	—	Filter by court ID (date_range mode only).
maxItems	integer	10	Maximum number of case records to return.

Example — party name search

{
  "searchMode": "party_name",
  "partyName": "Johnson",
  "partyRole": "A",
  "maxItems": 50
}

Example — date range search

{
  "searchMode": "date_range",
  "dateFrom": "01/01/2024",
  "dateTo": "12/31/2024",
  "maxItems": 100
}

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How it works

1. Opens the Harris County District Clerk public search portal.
2. Activates the appropriate search tab (party name or filing date).
3. Submits the search form via ASP.NET UpdatePanel async postback.
4. Parses the search results table directly — extracts all available fields from the result rows.
5. De-duplicates by case number (the table can return multiple rows per case when multiple parties match).
6. Returns up to maxItems unique cases.

The search portal returns up to 100 results per query. For large result sets, narrow your search using partyRole or a tighter date range.

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Coverage

• Court types: Civil and probate cases filed in Harris County District Courts.
• Historical depth: Records back to the 1970s (older cases shown as "Purged").
• Live data: Search results reflect the current state of the District Clerk's database.

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Limitations

• Maximum 100 results per search query (site limit).
• Case detail pages (attorney info, full filing history) require a registered hcdistrictclerk.com account — this actor extracts the publicly available search result fields only.
• US IP required — the site blocks non-US traffic.