Courts by City and County

Virginia prosecutes DUI locally. A charge under Va. Code § 18.2-266 is heard first in the general district court for the city or county where the stop happened, tried by a judge with no jury, and — if the result is a conviction — appealable to that locality's circuit court for a completely new trial, which is one of the few genuinely unusual features of Virginia criminal procedure. Which courthouse that is depends on lines a driver cannot see from the road: Virginia's cities are independent of the counties around them, so a stop a mile apart can land in two different courts with two different prosecutors.

These pages cover the localities readers search for most, and each one answers the same practical questions for that place: which court the case goes to, what the local process looks like, what representation there generally involves, and where to verify the court's own schedule and contact details. None of them names a lawyer or a firm. For that, the Virginia State Bar's lawyer directory is the authoritative source, and every court's own page on vacourts.gov is the authoritative source for the court.