Access West Feliciana Parish Clerk Records

West Feliciana Parish Clerk of Court

Stewart B. Hughes, also listed as Stewart Hughes, is the West Feliciana Parish Clerk of Court. The Louisiana Secretary of State clerk directory lists Hon. Stewart Hughes with the same local address, mailing address, phone, fax, and email shown in the research. The Louisiana Clerks of Court Association roster also lists Stewart B. Hughes for West Feliciana Parish. The office is a unified parish clerk office, not a split district clerk and county clerk structure.

The Clerk's website says the staff can assist with court filings, notary needs, elections information, marriage licenses, birth certificates, and land records. The Clerk court page says the office receives petitions, answers, exceptions, and other pleadings in civil, family, probate, juvenile, and adoption matters. It also receives indictments, bills of information, and other criminal filings. Each lawsuit, succession proceeding, and criminal matter is entered on a docket, assigned a number, and indexed for reference.

The Middle District of Louisiana court information source provides a useful federal comparison point for Clerk users.

That federal court source helps show why parish Clerk records and federal clerk records must be requested through different systems.

West Feliciana Parish Clerk Duties

The Clerk of Court is both a court records custodian and a public office with duties outside ordinary case files. The about page says the Clerk is Chief Election Officer of the parish and custodian of voting machines. The office delivers voting machines to precincts, notifies commissioners and deputy parish custodians of election-day duties, opens machines after an election, records votes, reseals machines, and reports totals to the Board of Election Supervisors.

The same office is nearly self-supporting. The research states that no tax money is provided except office space, utilities, and some modifications. Fees from recordings, certified copies, and services in civil, probate, and criminal proceedings fund salaries and expenses. For users, that means fees are not side details. They are part of how the office processes filings, certified copies, records, and searches.

• Receives civil, family, probate, juvenile, adoption, and criminal pleadings.
• Dockets, numbers, and indexes lawsuits, successions, and criminal matters.
• Handles marriage licenses, land records, notarial services, and birth certificate services listed by the office.
• Issues certified copies and court judgments through the local Clerk counter and request channels.
• Serves as parish Chief Election Officer and voting-machine custodian.

Request a West Feliciana Parish Certified Copy

Certified copies are used when a plain copy is not enough, such as for a court judgment, recorded document, marriage record, property filing, or other legal proof. The 20th JDC FAQ says judgment copies are picked up from the Clerk of Court in the parish where the case was heard. The Clerk recording fee schedule lists certified copies at $10 plus copy fee, while criminal certified copies are listed at $10.

1. Identify the record type: court judgment, criminal filing, marriage record, land record, succession document, or another Clerk-held record.
2. Gather the case number, docket number, filing date, party names, or book and page information if known.
3. Contact the Clerk by phone, mail, or in person to confirm whether the record is available online, at the counter, or by mail request.
4. Ask whether the requested copy is a plain copy or certified copy and confirm the copy fee, certification fee, and payment method.
5. Submit the request to the Clerk and provide a return mailing address if the copy will not be picked up at the courthouse.
6. For transcripts, contact the court reporter in the judge's office instead of the Clerk, because the 20th JDC FAQ routes transcript requests there.

Note: Certified copies come from the issuing office, not from a third-party search box.

West Feliciana Parish Records Request Fields

No single public Clerk request form was found with all fields exposed, so the practical inventory comes from the record access channels and file types documented in the research. These fields help the Clerk identify a court file, recording, marriage record, succession, or certified-copy request without relying on guesswork.

Cott eSearch has a narrower visible field inventory on the public login page: User ID, password, password reminder, create account, certified dates, site requirements, purchase history, and prepaid-account management. The post-login search fields were not visible without a paid account.

West Feliciana Parish Clerk Fees

The Clerk publishes separate civil, criminal, and recording fee schedules. A few common items are listed here for records users, but a filing can cost more when service, extra attorneys, extra names, extra tracts, recording pages, or special processing applies.

The U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana source is a separate court reference for comparison with local Clerk records.

Federal district court pages do not replace the West Feliciana Parish Clerk fee tables for local certified copies, recordings, and court filings.

Cott eSearch and Clerk Access

The Clerk's paid online records channel is Cott eSearch. The login screen shows User ID and password fields, a case-sensitive password tip, account creation, certified dates, site requirements, purchase history, and prepaid-account management. Subscription options captured in the research were 365-day unlimited index/images for $1,080 plus $1 per printed page, 30-day access for $100 plus $1 per printed page, and 24-hour access for $20 plus $1 per printed page. Prepaid accounts accept a minimum of $25 and maximum of $500; prepayments are nonrefundable and do not expire.

• Cott eSearch login - paid Clerk public records search.
• Civil fee schedule - civil, appeal, subpoena, and succession advance deposits.
• Criminal filing fees - criminal copies, background checks, expungements, minutes, peace bonds, and subpoenas.
• Marriage license requirements - local license documents, fee, waiting period, and age rules.

The PACER CM/ECF lookup for the Middle District of Louisiana is separate from parish Clerk records.

Federal PACER records should not be confused with West Feliciana Parish district court and Clerk records.

West Feliciana Parish E-Filing

The West Feliciana Clerk e-filing rules were adopted May 12, 2025. A registered user agrees to the terms by using any Clerk online system. Conventional filings may be e-filed unless law requires otherwise, and accepted e-filed documents constitute the official court record. The e-filing system is available 24/7/365 except for maintenance and outages, but the Clerk does not guarantee continuous operation.

Each submission must be a PDF. The PDF should be at least 300 DPI and within the software size limits. File names must use alphanumeric Latin1 characters, no special characters, and 50 characters or fewer. The rules prohibit password protection, encryption, package PDFs, embedded PDFs, multimedia, audio, video, or programming. The filer is responsible for redacting personal data identifiers. Filing date and time are tied to confirmation time if the Clerk accepts the document, and rejected documents produce notice and a reason.

For paper access, the same office remains the local point of contact. A requester can visit the courthouse basement, call 225-635-3794, fax 225-635-3770, mail P.O. Box 1843, or use the listed Clerk email from the state and association directories. Cott eSearch is useful for online index and image access, but it does not replace the Clerk when a certified copy, judgment, transcript routing question, or older file must be verified.

The Middle District CM/ECF live site is a federal filing system, separate from the parish Clerk e-filing rules.

That distinction helps filers avoid sending a state district court document into a federal court system by mistake.

The federal district boundaries also matter for users moving between parish and federal court. 28 U.S.C. 98 places West Feliciana Parish in the Middle District of Louisiana for federal court purposes.

Parish records still remain with the West Feliciana Parish Clerk unless the matter is actually a federal case.