How to Find Maine Court Records (2026)

In person or by phone. For Superior and District Court files, contact or visit the clerk's office of the court that heard the case. For probate files, contact the county's Register of Probate; probate is a separate office, usually in the county courthouse, but with its own staff and hours. Bring or provide the case number if you have it; otherwise the parties' names and an approximate year.

By mail. The Judicial Branch's centralized Records Search Request goes to the Judicial Branch Service Center, P.O. Box 266, Lewiston, ME 04240 (207-753-2901), for Superior and District Court files; include the case number or party names and year, exactly which documents you need, whether you need an attested (certified) copy, and payment. Probate requests go directly to the county Register of Probate, not to the Service Center.

Online. Where a county has converted to eCourts, re:SearchMaine shows the Registry of Actions for free after a free registration, and some documents are viewable if the court has designated them public. Certified copies still require a request to the clerk. Probate dockets for participating counties are indexed at maineprobate.net; certified copies come from the Register of Probate.

Fees. Under the statewide Court Fees Schedule (Administrative Order JB-05-26), a plain copy is $2.00 for the first page and $1.00 for each additional page, and attesting (certifying) a document costs an additional $5.00 per document, plus a $5.00 postage-and-handling charge if a self-addressed stamped envelope is not provided. Probate Courts set and collect their own copy fees separately, and most publish a fee schedule on the county's website.

Maine court records are generally open, but the Judicial Branch's Rules of Electronic Court Systems (MRECS) and Administrative Order JB-20-03 (Public Access and Confidentiality) draw a distinction between "public court information," "confidential" information restricted to parties or courthouse viewing, and records that are fully sealed or impounded by statute, rule, or court order. Maine's Freedom of Access Act does not apply to the judiciary — court records are governed by these Judicial Branch rules, not a public-records request.

Categories routinely kept out of public search include:

• Juvenile case records. Under 15 M.R.S. §3308-C, a juvenile case record may be sealed after disposition unless the court finds the public's interest in the record outweighs the juvenile's privacy interest; sealing restricts, though does not erase, the record.
• Child protection, guardianship of minors, and adoption cases. These are confidential; adoption records in particular are closed to the general public.
• Protection from abuse and protection from harassment cases involving domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking, or sex trafficking receive additional confidentiality protection for the party seeking protection.
• Mental health and certain medical proceedings.

Maine does not have a formal "expungement" statute the way many states do; instead the Judicial Branch and the SBI seal or restrict dissemination of qualifying records rather than destroying them. Anyone asking a clerk or the SBI to remove or correct a record should expect to be pointed to the specific sealing statute or the SBI's record-challenge process rather than a general expungement petition.