State Court Civil Division
The Clerk’s Office is located in downtown Decatur adjacent to the Decatur Marta station at:
DeKalb County Courthouse
556 N. McDonough Street
2nd Floor, Administrative Tower
Decatur, Georgia 30030
Tel: (404) 371-2261
The office is open on Monday through Friday (except legal holidays) from 8:30 am to 5:00 pm.
Lawsuits can be filed on Suite 230 of the Administrative Tower. You can send your suit by mail or courier to the address shown above with the appropriate fee or you can come in person.
That information is listed on the cost bill on the website. For more specific information, please call (404) 371-2261.
No. The Clerk does not accept pleadings by fax or email.
To find out if a lawsuit was filed against you, please refer to the Online Judicial System Website. There is a link to that website and you can search by party name or case number. If you do not have access to a computer, please call the Clerk’s office at (404) 371-2261.
If you pay for service, deputy marshals under the direction of R. S. Mann, the State Court Marshal will serve your lawsuit or other papers.
To find out if a lawsuit was served, please refer to the Online Judicial System Website. At that Website you can search by party name or case number. If you do not have access to a computer, please call the Clerk’s office at (404) 371-2261. Once a suit has been served a copy of the marshal’s return of service is mailed to the plaintiff or the plaintiff’s attorney and an entry showing service is docketed.
es. You will be notified when to come to court. In addition to published notice in the legal section of the Champion newspaper, (the County’s legal organ), as a courtesy, notices of hearing are mailed by the judge’s calendar clerk to all parties in civil action. In order to ensure that correspondence sent by the court is received, it is the responsibility of each litigant to notify the court in writing of any change of address. Additionally, the court’s calendars are posted on this website.
Each judge has a civil calendar clerk. Generally, an attorney or litigant is expected to contact the other party or parties to let them know that they are requesting a continuance and to find out whether it is consented to or opposed by all interested parties. If sufficient time is available, the request should be made in writing with appropriate documentation. The calendar clerk gets directions from the judge and informs the interested parties whether the case will be continued. Failure to appear may lead to you losing your case and the imposition of other sanctions. The calendar clerk may be reached directly at the numbers provided on this website or by calling the Clerk’s office at (404)371-2261.
A judge’s decision is given in a written order. Once the order is recorded in the court’s records, copies are mailed to each litigant (party) in the case or the decision is hand-delivered in the courtroom to all parties in the action.
The court does not collect money awarded by a judgment. Judgments may be collected in various ways, including through garnishment proceedings or by levy. If you are unsure how to proceed in collecting money please contact an attorney licensed to practice in Georgia.
The party or their counsel can sign on the writ of Fi Fa and request that the court show the Fi Fa as cancelled. That information is recorded on the General Execution Docket maintained by the Superior Court of DeKalb County.
Court decisions may be appealed. There are rules and procedures that must be followed in order to file an appeal. Contact an attorney for legal advice on how to proceed. It costs $25 to file a notice of appeal. There are additional costs associated with an appeal including, the costs for preparing the records and costs assessed by the appellate court.
Original case files are kept at the Clerk’s office for three (3) years. All other cases are located off site and if requested, they can be ordered from the County’s records retention center. Please allow three (3) to ten (10) days for a file to be located and delivered to the Clerk’s office. Copies are available for a charge.
No. The Court does not have local rules. It follows the Uniform Superior Court Rules and the Uniform State Court Rules.