Example Data Request: How to Access Court Eviction Data

Most of what we understand about eviction trends in a given city or county comes from local court records. Often the best way to access these records is through a data request. This resource includes an example eviction data request followed by helpful commentary that a researcher, policymaker, or advocate can use when requesting eviction data from their state or local court.

Take note! Before drafting and sending off a data request, you should understand the context of your local data environment. For example, your county court may already have a standard form you can fill out to request this data, or a nonprofit may already analyze this data publicly. Use New America’s companion resource, “Resource and Flowchart: How to Access Court Eviction Data,” to determine which data access pathway makes sense in your context, and use the flowchart alongside this example request to make your court eviction data request as successful as possible.

The example language provided below is not one-size-fits-all: Please draw inspiration from this phrasing while editing it to fit your specific data context and research plan. The example language touches on all the components to include in your request, including who to reach out to, why you’re requesting the data, what you plan to do with it, and which data fields you’d like to receive. Following the text of the letter, we provide guidance and additional details on formulating a successful ask.

As you formulate your data request, building off your own outreach and data analysis goals, refer to the guidance below for tips on framing and communicating your request.

Who to Reach Out To

Most courts have a staff member who responds to data requests. Sometimes it’s a clerk, a specially designated data officer, or a public information officer. Look up the staff and their roles at your local court to get a sense of who would be the best contact. This person, who we refer to as the “Court Data POC,” will be your primary contact.

Before submitting your request, reach out to the Court Data POC to initiate a conversation about data collection processes, including which data is available, at what level of detail, and in what format.

Why You're Requesting the Data

We hope that the people using this example request have a goal of keeping tenants housed. However, be strategic in your framing: Some courts may be wary of seeming biased in sharing information that will be used explicitly to benefit tenants “at the expense of” landlords. While still being faithful to what you actually want to do with the data, emphasizing upstream interventions that can reduce filings, and thus benefit tenants, landlords, and the court alike, may be strategic.

To the extent that you’ve identified a specific audience and use case for this data, include that in your justification, as it will be more persuasive than “general research.” Additionally, share any examples from nearby or peer jurisdictions where similar research or court data sharing was found to produce a mutually beneficial outcome for courts and researchers or service providers.

What You're Going to Do With the Data

You can also consider phrasing your research plan as questions instead: “How many filings end in a judgment?” instead of “judgment rate.”

Note that the example language above about de-identified information doesn’t apply if you plan to identify serial evictors or conduct other analyses broken down by landlord, so adjust accordingly.

The Time Period You Want Data For, and How Frequently You’d Like It to Be Updated

Sometimes courts can provide one-time bulk data requests, but lack the capacity for ongoing data sharing. Think about whether a historical analysis of eviction data is useful or whether tracking trends moving forward will suffice for your purposes.

The further back your data request goes, the harder it may be for the court to fulfill, depending on their data management software. An initial conversation with the Court Data POC can shed light on what’s feasible.

Your Desired Data Format

When sharing data, courts often provide the requested information across multiple spreadsheets. This is less burdensome for the court, meaning your request is more likely to be approved, but will require you to merge the data yourself before analyzing it.

Your Plan to Protect Data Privacy

While the data you’re requesting may be already publicly available on the court’s website as individual (not bulk) case records and therefore not totally confidential, information like defendants’ names and addresses is nonetheless very sensitive. Never publish personally identifiable information, and always store it securely.

Something you can ask the Court Data POC about in advance is how any record sealing laws will impact your data access and management. You can address any of those considerations in this section as needed.

The Data Fields You Want

The data fields you’ll request depend on your goals for how you’ll analyze and use the data. See New America’s Understanding Evictions: A Guide to Using Local Court Data on what you can learn from specific data fields and our “Court Eviction Data Standards” for a comprehensive list of data fields.

To understand the full eviction process, you’ll want to obtain data on as many different points in the process as possible. However, you may need to balance comprehensive data collection with constraints from the court’s record-keeping practices and personnel capacity.

Your local or state court may not collect all of the information listed in New America’s data standards resource or the list of data fields in the example letter above. If your court uses electronic records, you can probably look up an eviction case on your court’s website to see which types of information are collected and how they are named, although the court may have data beyond what is publicly displayed. Depending on their case management software platform, a court might be able to easily pull some fields in bulk, but not others.

Your records request will help you learn what information is and isn’t available, but it’s good to get a sense of what may be possible from the Court Data POC before you formulate your request. And if court staff workload is too high to provide the data you’re looking for, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to make a request—if your request is not granted, you could try again with a pared-down request.

If your data request is approved (congrats!), the court will most likely ask you to sign a memorandum of understanding (MOU) or a data-sharing agreement to govern your use of data from the court. If not, you may want to consider proposing such an agreement in order to create clarity between you and the court about the details of your data sharing. If your organization has legal counsel, consult with them to understand the details of your data-sharing agreement. The following resources provide helpful information on and examples of data-sharing agreements:

• Model agreements from Georgetown Law’s Civil Justice Data Commons;
• Sample memorandum of understanding from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; and
• State Court Civil Justice Data Considerations for Federal and Local Partners by the National Center for State Courts (see pages 16–17).

For more resources and information related to the Eviction Data Response Network (EDRN), visit the EDRN project page here.