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VIRGINIA RESEARCH
Virginia Case Law Search: Search Virginia Case Law, Court of Appeals Decisions, and Supreme Court of Virginia Opinions in Plain English
Ask a Virginia question the way you would ask a colleague and get back opinions from the Supreme Court of Virginia and the Court of Appeals, with the citation you actually file and the holding in plain language.
Last updated July 2026 · US firms · Research tool, not legal advice
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- Authorities
Casesearch shows you the sources. Always read the full opinion and verify citations before you rely on them.
The short answer
Virginia case law search means finding the decisions of the Supreme Court of Virginia and the Court of Appeals of Virginia that control your issue. Virginia is the state that changed most recently and most completely: until January 1, 2022 it was the only state in the country with no guaranteed right of appellate review from a trial court, and the reform that fixed that turned the Court of Appeals into the intermediate appellate court for every civil and criminal case. The court is still growing to absorb the work. It went from 11 judges to 17 in 2022, and under Acts 2026, c. 615 it expands to 21 judges effective September 1, 2026, with a new 13 judge en banc court replacing the full court sitting.
21
Court of Appeals judges effective September 1, 2026, up from 17 today
Jan 1, 2022
the date every civil case got an appeal of right, ending Virginia outlier status
13
judges on an en banc Court of Appeals from September 1, 2026, not the full bench
Rule 5A:1(f)
unpublished decisions are citable as informative, never as binding authority
Side by side
The Virginia court structure and what actually binds your court
Virginia runs a single statewide intermediate appellate court with no geographic divisions, so you never have to ask which appellate district you are in. What you do have to ask on every result is whether the decision was published, and whether it predates the January 2022 jurisdictional change.
| Court | What it decides | How it is cited | Precedential weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Supreme Court of Virginia | Discretionary review by petition for appeal, plus limited appeals of right | Va., parallel S.E.2d | Binding on every court in Virginia |
| Court of Appeals of Virginia (published) | Appeals of right in all civil and criminal cases since January 1, 2022 | Va. App., parallel S.E.2d | Binding statewide, and on other panels under the interpanel accord doctrine |
| Court of Appeals of Virginia (unpublished) | The same appeals, resolved by unpublished opinion or per curiam order | Case name and docket number, with a copy attached if not publicly available | Citable as informative under Rule 5A:1(f), never binding |
| Circuit Court | General jurisdiction civil and criminal trials across 31 judicial circuits | Not published as precedent | No precedential value |
| General District and J&DR District Courts | Limited jurisdiction civil, misdemeanor, traffic, and juvenile matters | Not published as precedent | No precedential value |
| Fourth Circuit and the Virginia federal districts | Federal questions and diversity cases applying Virginia law | F.4th, F. Supp. 3d | Persuasive only in state court on questions of Virginia law |
The Court of Appeals sits in panels of at least three judges, and all three must be present to constitute a quorum. Judges are elected to eight year terms by a majority of the members elected to each house of the General Assembly.
How do I search Virginia case law?
Describe the issue as a full question rather than a string of keywords, name the court the case sits in, and then read every result with one date filter that Virginia makes unavoidable: did the decision issue before or after January 1, 2022? That is the day the Court of Appeals became the intermediate appellate court for all civil cases. Before it, most civil appeals went straight to the Supreme Court of Virginia by petition, and the Court of Appeals heard a narrow slice of subject matter. A 2019 civil case and a 2024 civil case therefore came through structurally different systems, and the body of Court of Appeals civil precedent is genuinely young.
After that the ordinary checks apply in a specific order. Look first for a Supreme Court of Virginia holding, because it settles the question statewide. If there is none, a published Court of Appeals decision binds trial courts across the Commonwealth. Only then reach for unpublished decisions and circuit court opinions, which persuade rather than control. Finally, confirm the Supreme Court has not granted a petition for appeal in your case or decided the issue since, which is the most common way a Virginia authority quietly goes stale.
Ask in a full sentence
Include the Code of Virginia section, the parties, and the procedural posture so the search has real facts to match.
Check the date against January 2022
The civil appellate route changed completely on that date.
Skip the district question
Virginia has no appellate divisions, so a published decision binds statewide.
Check for a granted petition
A pending Supreme Court of Virginia appeal can unsettle the decision you are relying on.
Are Court of Appeals of Virginia decisions binding on trial courts?
Yes, when they are published. The Court of Appeals of Virginia is the only intermediate appellate court in the Commonwealth, and it has no geographic divisions, so there is no such thing as a decision that controls in Richmond but merely persuades in Roanoke. A published decision binds circuit courts and district courts across Virginia until the Supreme Court of Virginia holds otherwise.
Virginia also has an unusually well named rule for how panels bind each other: the <strong>interpanel accord doctrine</strong>. A holding by one three judge panel of the Court of Appeals binds every other panel, and it can only be displaced by the Court of Appeals sitting en banc or by the Supreme Court of Virginia. Virginia courts have been explicit that the doctrine reaches not just the literal holding but the ratio decidendi, the essential rationale that determined the judgment. See Clinchfield Coal Co. v. Reed, 40 Va. App. 69, 73, 577 S.E.2d 538, 540 (2003). In practice this means a panel decision you find is worth more than it looks: it is not one panel of many competing views, it is the court speaking until the court unspeaks it. If the distinction between holding and reasoning is doing work in your argument, our breakdown of <a href="/blog/holding-vs-dicta">holding versus dicta</a> and <a href="/blog/ratio-decidendi-explained">ratio decidendi</a> is worth reading first.
That structure makes Virginia simpler than most large states. Washington splits its intermediate court into three co-equal divisions that do not bind each other. Florida runs six District Courts of Appeal. Illinois has five appellate districts, each with its own body of law. In Virginia the only hierarchy question worth asking is whether the Supreme Court has spoken, and whether the panel decision in front of you has been taken en banc.
One court, no divisions
A published Court of Appeals decision binds every trial court in the Commonwealth.
Interpanel accord
One panel binds all other panels, including the ratio decidendi.
Only two ways to displace it
The Court of Appeals sitting en banc, or the Supreme Court of Virginia.
Panels of at least three
All three judges must be present to make a quorum.
What is changing in the Court of Appeals of Virginia in 2026?
Two things, both effective September 1, 2026, under Acts 2026, c. 615. The first is size. The Court of Appeals grows from 17 judges to 21. That is the second expansion in five years: it went from 11 to 17 when the January 2022 reform handed it every civil appeal in the Commonwealth, and the further increase reflects how much work that turned out to be.
The second change is more consequential for how you read precedent. Until now, an en banc Court of Appeals meant the full court. From September 1, 2026 the court sits en banc with no fewer than 13 judges: the three judges of the original panel, plus ten more selected under a randomized rotational schedule set by Supreme Court of Virginia rules. A majority of the sitting judges must concur to reverse a judgment in whole or in part. The threshold to convene en banc also changed, to a majority vote of the court that en banc consideration is appropriate. The prior scheme was narrower and more mechanical, turning on a dissent within the panel with at least six judges agreeing to rehear, or on a panel judge certifying a conflict with a prior decision and five other judges agreeing.
For research purposes the practical effect is that en banc decisions issued from late 2026 onward come from a 13 judge subset rather than the whole bench, and the path to getting one has shifted from a dissent driven trigger to a straightforward majority vote. When you are weighing whether a panel decision is likely to hold, that is the procedure that matters. Note the timing carefully: as of July 2026 the court still has 17 judges and the old en banc rules still govern, so anything you read that describes the court today is describing a structure with a few weeks left to run.
17 judges today
The expansion to 21 takes effect September 1, 2026.
13 judge en banc
Three from the original panel, ten by randomized rotation.
Majority to convene
Replacing the old dissent trigger and conflict certification routes.
Majority to reverse
A majority of the sitting judges must concur to reverse in whole or in part.
Can you cite an unpublished opinion in Virginia?
Yes, as informative authority, and never as binding authority. Rule 5A:1(f) of the Rules of the Supreme Court of Virginia permits citation of judicial opinions, orders, judgments, and other written dispositions that are not officially reported, whether they are labeled unpublished, not for publication, non precedential, or anything similar. The rule says plainly that such a disposition is permitted as informative but will not be received as binding authority.
There is one procedural requirement attached. If the disposition you are citing is not available in a publicly accessible electronic database, you must file a copy of it with the brief or other paper in which it is cited. That is a lighter burden than the Massachusetts attachment rule, which requires a copy in every case, but it is a real one and it is easy to overlook when you pulled the order from a subscription service.
The judgment call is when to use one at all. An unpublished Court of Appeals decision on all fours with your facts is genuinely useful for showing a court how this issue tends to come out, and Virginia practitioners cite them regularly. What it cannot do is carry the weight of the argument. If your only support is unpublished, treat that as a signal to keep researching rather than a signal to file. Our guide on <a href="/blog/can-you-cite-an-unpublished-opinion">when you can cite an unpublished opinion</a> compares how the federal courts and other states handle the same question, and <a href="/blog/published-vs-unpublished-opinions">published versus unpublished opinions</a> covers why courts designate them in the first place.
Informative, not binding
Rule 5A:1(f) says so in terms.
Attach a copy if needed
Required only when the decision is not in a publicly accessible database.
Label does not matter
The rule covers unpublished, not for publication, and non precedential alike.
Never the whole argument
Unpublished support alone means the research is not finished.
How do I cite a Virginia case, and where can I find Virginia opinions online?
Virginia cites to its own official reports with a parallel South Eastern Reporter cite. Supreme Court of Virginia decisions appear in Virginia Reports, abbreviated Va., and Court of Appeals decisions appear in Virginia Court of Appeals Reports, abbreviated Va. App. Both carry a parallel citation to the South Eastern Reporter, currently S.E.2d. A full Virginia citation looks like Clinchfield Coal Co. v. Reed, 40 Va. App. 69, 73, 577 S.E.2d 538, 540 (2003), with pinpoints to both reporters. Virginia has not adopted a public domain or medium neutral citation format, so a recent decision has no permanent citation until it reaches the official reports and is cited by case name, docket number, and date until then. If the parts of a citation are unfamiliar, our breakdown of <a href="/blog/how-to-read-a-legal-citation">how to read a legal citation</a> walks through reporters, pinpoints, and parentheticals.
The official opinions are free. Virginia's Judicial System website posts Supreme Court and Court of Appeals opinions as they are released, and the Code of Virginia is published by the Virginia Law Portal. Google Scholar and CourtListener carry the same opinions with better full text search than the official sites offer. What none of them give you is a citator, a plain-language holding, or a warning that the decision you are reading is unpublished and therefore informative only.
That last gap is where Virginia research goes wrong in practice. A free search engine will hand you a published opinion and an unpublished per curiam order side by side with very little to distinguish them, and it will not tell you the Supreme Court granted a petition for appeal in that case last term. The enterprise platforms solve it with editorial headnotes and the KeyCite and Shepard's citators, at a per seat cost a three lawyer firm in Norfolk struggles to justify. A self-serve tool that returns the cited holding, names the deciding court, and flags subsequent treatment covers the everyday work at a fraction of that. We lay out the category in the <a href="/legal-research-software">legal research software</a> guide and the real numbers in the <a href="/legal-research-software-pricing">legal research software pricing</a> breakdown.
Frequently asked
Questions buyers ask about virginia case law search
How do I search Virginia case law?
Describe your issue as a full question and search decisions of the Supreme Court of Virginia and the Court of Appeals of Virginia. Check whether each decision issued before or after January 1, 2022, when the Court of Appeals became the intermediate appellate court for all civil cases, and confirm the Supreme Court has not granted a petition for appeal since.
Are Court of Appeals of Virginia decisions binding on trial courts?
Yes, when published. Virginia has one statewide intermediate appellate court with no geographic divisions, so a published decision binds circuit and district courts across the Commonwealth. Under the interpanel accord doctrine it also binds every other panel of the Court of Appeals until displaced by the court sitting en banc or by the Supreme Court of Virginia.
Can you cite an unpublished opinion in Virginia?
Yes, as informative authority only. Rule 5A:1(f) permits citing unreported dispositions but states they will not be received as binding authority. If the decision is not available in a publicly accessible electronic database, you must file a copy of it with the brief or paper that cites it.
How many judges are on the Court of Appeals of Virginia?
Seventeen as of July 2026, rising to 21 effective September 1, 2026 under Acts 2026, c. 615. The court expanded from 11 to 17 in 2022 when it took on all civil and criminal appeals of right. It hears cases in panels of at least three judges, and all three must be present for a quorum.
What is the interpanel accord doctrine in Virginia?
It is the rule that a holding by one panel of the Court of Appeals of Virginia binds all other panels of that court. It reaches the essential rationale of the decision, not just its literal holding, and a protected panel decision can be overruled only by the Court of Appeals sitting en banc or by the Supreme Court of Virginia.
When did Virginia get appeals of right in civil cases?
January 1, 2022. Before that date Virginia was the only state in the country with no guaranteed right of appellate review from a trial court, and most civil appeals reached the Supreme Court of Virginia only by discretionary petition. The reform gave litigants an appeal of right to the Court of Appeals in civil cases.
How do I cite a Virginia case?
Cite the official reports with a parallel South Eastern Reporter cite: Va. for Supreme Court of Virginia decisions and Va. App. for Court of Appeals decisions, both with S.E.2d. Virginia has no public domain citation format, so a decision not yet in the official reports is cited by case name, docket number, and date.
Keep reading
Federal case law search
Fourth Circuit authority, F.4th, and what binds a federal court in Virginia.
Massachusetts case law search
Another single statewide appellate court, with a stricter unpublished rule.
New Jersey case law search
One statewide Appellate Division, and how Rule 1:36-3 differs.
Georgia case law search
The neighboring state, and its binding versus physical precedent split.
What decisions are binding in my state
How binding authority works court by court, state by state.
Can you cite an unpublished opinion
The citation rules for unpublished decisions, state by state and federally.
How to read a legal citation
Reporters, pinpoints, parentheticals, and subsequent history.
Check if a case is still good law
The treatment check that catches reversals and superseding statutes.
Legal research software
The four kinds of research tool and how to choose between them.
Casesearch is a legal research tool, not legal advice. Always read the full opinion and verify citations before relying on them.
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Search Virginia case law in plain English
Ask your Virginia question and read the controlling opinions, whether they were published, and the treatment signal for yourself. A research tool, not legal advice.