The Civil Division of the Court receives and processes all filings for general civil claims up to $25,000.00, small claims up to $3,000.00, landlord/tenant evictions, land contract forfeiture, claim and delivery actions, and weddings. The clerks are not allowed to give legal advice. They merely accept your filings and the associated fee. When appropriate, they schedule a hearing. The procedures to be followed are contained in the Michigan Court Rules. Any questions should be referred to your attorney.
Corporations must be represented by an attorney, except in the small claims division, where a corporation may be represented by an officer or full time employee who has direct and personal knowledge of the facts in dispute. Partnerships may be represented by a general partner or full time employee who has direct and personal knowledge of the facts in dispute.
Jury selection takes place once each month, generally on the third Monday of the month. Jurors that are summoned will report to the court by 12:30pm on the day of jury selection. Jury selection hearings will then occur and juries will be selected for trial on a future date. All juror's selected to serve on a particular jury will receive notice of the actual trial date before being excused from the court on jury selection day.
There is no call in advance of service to see if you really need to appear. Please plan on being at the court by 12:30pm on the date scheduled for your jury service. If you have any questions, you may call the jury clerk at: (517) 676-8420.
If you are scheduled for jury duty and cannot appear, you must have the permission of the court to be excused and/or have the dates changed. Call the jury clerk at (517) 676-8420 on Monday (except jury service day), Thursday or Friday in the afternoon hours. You can also contact the jury clerk by email. If the jury clerk is on vacation, no one will be checking the email link - so if you do not receive a reply shortly, please call.
Questions about how the jury system works and the role of the jury during a trial can be answered by reading the Juror's Manual on this web site.
The court has available many of the various forms you will need to process General Civil, Landlord/Tenant, Land Contract Forfeiture and Small Claims proceedings. You may obtain these forms at our clerks desk at a cost of $1.00 per form.
Several of the pages above have links for you to obtain copies of the various forms used in the court through the internet. These forms are available in PDF format. You can complete many of these forms on line and print to your own computer's printer, or download them.
The .PDF format requires you to have installed on your computer, Adobe Acobat Reader, which will allow your printer to print out the form as it appears on your computer screen. There is a link below from this page to the Adobe web site, so that you can download (free of charge) the Adobe Acobat Reader.
CIVIL DEPARTMENT LINKS WITHIN THIS SITE:
General Court Forms Index Page
