Which Court Will My Hampton Roads Injury Case Be Filed In?

This is one of the most common questions I get and one of the hardest to look up. Ask the internet which court will hear your Chesapeake accident case and you will find a great deal about hiring a lawyer and almost nothing about the actual courthouse. So here are all six, in one place, from the Virginia Court System's own records.

Every Hampton Roads city is a different circuit

People assume Hampton Roads is one legal area. It is not. The six cities I serve outside Virginia Beach sit in six separate judicial circuits, each with its own courthouse, its own judges, its own clerk and its own scheduling practice.

Chesapeake is the 1st Judicial Circuit. Portsmouth is the 3rd. Norfolk is the 4th. Suffolk is the 5th. Newport News is the 7th. Hampton is the 8th. Virginia Beach, where my office is, is the 2nd.

That matters more than it sounds. Two crashes a mile apart on opposite sides of a city line go to different buildings, in front of different judges, on different calendars. On a road that runs through two cities, which side you landed on is not always obvious from the police report, and it is far easier to establish at the start than at filing.

The six courthouses

Chesapeake Circuit Court: 1st Judicial Circuit. 307 Albemarle Drive, Suite 300A, Chesapeake, VA 23322-5579. Clerk: (757) 382-3000. More on Chesapeake cases.

Portsmouth Circuit Court: 3rd Judicial Circuit. 1345 Court Street, Suite 101, Portsmouth, VA 23705-1217. Clerk: (757) 393-8671. More on Portsmouth cases.

Norfolk Circuit Court: 4th Judicial Circuit. 150 St. Paul's Boulevard, 7th Floor, Norfolk, VA 23510-2773. Clerk: (757) 389-8942. More on Norfolk cases.

Suffolk Circuit Court: 5th Judicial Circuit. 150 North Main Street, Mills E. Godwin, Jr. Courts Building, Suffolk, VA 23439-1604. Clerk: (757) 514-7800. More on Suffolk cases.

Newport News Circuit Court: 7th Judicial Circuit. 2500 Washington Avenue, Courthouse Building, Newport News, VA 23607-4307. Clerk: (757) 926-8561. More on Newport News cases.

Hampton Circuit Court: 8th Judicial Circuit. 237 N. King Street, Hampton, VA 23669-0040. Clerk: (757) 727-6105. More on Hampton cases.

All six were read directly off the Virginia Court System's circuit court directory on 16 July 2026. Court details do change, so confirm before you rely on one.

Circuit court or general district court?

The addresses above are the circuit courts, which is where a personal injury lawsuit of any real size gets filed. Each of these cities also has a general district court, which handles smaller claims and moves faster with a judge rather than a jury.

Which one your case belongs in depends on how much it is worth, and that threshold is set by statute and does change, so it is worth asking rather than assuming. In practice the decision is made with your lawyer once the medical picture is clear, because filing in the wrong place wastes months.

It is also worth saying plainly: most claims settle and never get filed anywhere. But the venue is part of what the other side is pricing from the beginning, so it shapes the number even when nobody ever walks into the building.

Why the circuit changes how your case runs

The law is the same in all of them. Virginia's two-year deadline and its contributory negligence rule apply identically in every one of these buildings. What changes is the practice.

Terms sit on different calendars. Suffolk's 5th Circuit also covers Franklin, Isle of Wight and Southampton, so its judges move between jurisdictions and it does not run on the same rhythm as a compact single-city circuit like Norfolk's 4th. Dense urban circuits and rural ones draw juries from very different pools, which matters long before anyone talks about trial.

None of that changes whether you have a case. It changes how long it takes and what it is realistically worth, which is why anyone valuing your claim should know which building it would land in.

Where my office is, and why it does not decide the court

My office is in Virginia Beach, which is the 2nd Judicial Circuit. That does not restrict where I take cases. A lawsuit is generally filed where the crash happened or where the defendant lives, not where the lawyer's desk is, and I am licensed across the Commonwealth.

So if you were hurt in Suffolk, your case goes to Suffolk. If you were hurt on the Chesapeake Expressway, it goes to Chesapeake. The courthouse follows the facts.

If you are not sure which side of a line your crash was on, that is worth working out early. Call me on 757-965-7200 and I will tell you, free, whether or not you ever hire me.