Different jurisdiction.
Same firm.
The City of St. Louis is not part of St. Louis County. It has not been since 1876 — the Great Divorce — and to this day the City sits as its own jurisdiction with its own court system, its own police, and its own circuit. Cases filed in the City of St. Louis go to the 22nd Judicial Circuit, not the 21st. Our Florissant office is about fifteen minutes north on I-70/I-170, and a meaningful share of our caseload comes from inside City limits: traffic from the Page corridor, injury claims from the I-44/I-70 interchange, criminal matters arraigned at the Carnahan Courthouse, and estates administered at the Civil Courts Building on Tucker.
Fifteen minutes north,
on the interstate.
Downtown St. Louis to our Florissant office is roughly fifteen minutes on I-70 or I-170, traffic depending. Many City clients drive up for an in-person consult rather than handle the case entirely by phone — the office sits a short way off the highway, has parking on site, and the corridor between the City and Florissant is one we know well. For matters that do not need a sit-down, the entire intake can be handled by phone the same business day.
Where City of St. Louis
cases get decided.
The City has its own circuit — the 22nd Judicial Circuit of Missouri — and its own municipal bench. Civil and probate matters sit at the Civil Courts Building on Tucker; criminal matters arraign at the Carnahan Courthouse on Market.
22nd Judicial Circuit Court
10 N. Tucker Boulevard · St. Louis, MO 63101
Felony cases, contested civil matters, dissolution and family law, and larger personal injury actions. The Civil Courts Building is the main civil and probate venue inside the City.
City of St. Louis Municipal Court
1520 Market Street · St. Louis, MO 63103
Ordinance violations, traffic citations from the Page/Forest Park Parkway/I-70 corridor inside City limits, careless driving, no insurance, and the routine minor matters that fill the City municipal docket.
22nd Circuit Probate Division
10 N. Tucker Boulevard · St. Louis, MO 63101
Estate administration, conservatorships, guardianships. Same Civil Courts Building as the Circuit Court — one address handles both the civil docket and the probate docket for everyone living inside City limits.
City criminal arraignments do not happen at the Civil Courts Building. They are held at the Carnahan Courthouse at 1114 Market Street, two blocks west on the same street as the Municipal Court. A defendant arrested inside City limits will see the inside of the Carnahan building before anything else — not the Tucker building. That single fact is worth knowing before the first court date.
Verify Before Relying Court addresses, hours, and procedural information above are believed accurate but may change. Verify current details with the court directly — addresses, dockets, filing windows, and clerk hours can change without notice. Statute citations and procedural references on this page were believed accurate at the time of writing; Missouri law changes regularly.
Eight practices,
one phone number.
City of St. Louis work skews toward criminal defense and personal injury given the urban density — more police contact, more pedestrian and intersection incidents, more MetroLink-adjacent matters. The other practices fill out the calendar. English or Spanish · Hablamos español.
- Criminal defense: felony, misdemeanor, drug offenses, assault, weapons, federal — see Missouri criminal defense. The Carnahan Courthouse arraignment is the first appearance in nearly every City felony case.
- Personal injury: car wrecks, truck collisions, slip-and-fall, wrongful death, pedestrian incidents — see Personal Injury Lawyer Missouri, car accidents, truck accidents, and wrongful death. No fee unless we recover.
- DWI & DUI defense: both the criminal case and the parallel administrative license proceeding — see Missouri DWI lawyer and the 15-day rule.
- Traffic tickets: speeding, careless driving, CDL violations — see Missouri traffic ticket lawyer. City citations get adjudicated at the Municipal Court on Market Street.
- Workers’ compensation: work injuries, denied claims, permanent disability — see Missouri workers’ comp lawyer.
- Expungement: sealing eligible misdemeanor and felony records — see Missouri expungement attorney.
- License restoration: hardship petitions and full reinstatement — see license restoration in Missouri.
- Estate planning: wills, trusts, powers of attorney, probate — see estate planning attorney Missouri.
Why a City case
looks different.
The City of St. Louis is denser, more walkable, and more car-pedestrian than anywhere in St. Louis County. That shifts the case mix. Personal injury caseloads inside City limits skew more toward pedestrian and bicycle incidents than they do in the suburbs, and toward intersection collisions in the urban grid rather than the high-speed interstate wrecks that dominate the county. MetroLink stations — the platforms, the parking lots, the sidewalks immediately adjacent — show up regularly as the location of a fall, a confrontation, or a citation. The I-44 and I-70 interchange in the central corridor produces its own steady volume of multi-vehicle collisions, and any of those can become a serious-injury case fast.
The other thing that distinguishes a City matter is the police-citation pattern. The City’s police force generates traffic and minor-criminal contact at a different rate than most county departments, and a meaningful share of City clients first call us about a citation issued during what was otherwise a routine stop. The City has a substantial Spanish-speaking population — roughly five percent of residents — and we handle intakes in English or Spanish. What we ask first when a City case walks in: where the incident happened (the exact street and the exact intersection determine which beat issued the citation and which division of the 22nd Circuit will hear what comes next), whether anyone was transported by EMS, and whether the matter is already on a court docket. The answers shape everything that follows.
The City is its own jurisdiction. The 22nd Circuit is its own circuit. Treating a City case like a county case is the single most common mistake we see — and the first thing we correct when a new City client calls.
St. Louis City legal FAQ —
straight answers.
The questions St. Louis City residents and businesses ask most often. General information; specific facts always change the analysis.
What court handles felony cases for St. Louis City residents?
Felony charges originating in St. Louis City are filed in the 22nd Judicial Circuit Court at the Carnahan Courthouse, 1114 Market Street, St. Louis. Initial appearances, preliminary hearings, and bond review are heard there before the case is assigned to a trial division. We appear in the City of St. Louis regularly.
Where are ordinance violations heard in St. Louis City?
The St. Louis Municipal Court at the Civil Courts Building handles ordinance violations. Routine traffic citations, careless-driving tickets, and minor city-code matters are decided at the municipal level rather than at the the City of St. Louis Circuit Court.
How far is your office from St. Louis City?
Our office at 580 N. U.S. Highway 67, Suite 4 in Florissant is about 20 minutes south of Florissant via I-170. Many St. Louis City clients meet us in person; others handle the entire matter by phone and video, with in-home signings available for estate planning.
Can my St. Louis City criminal case be expunged?
Many Missouri misdemeanors and a meaningful list of felonies are now expungeable under RSMo §610.140, with waiting periods that begin after sentence completion. We screen eligibility on the first call.
What is a suspended imposition of sentence in Missouri?
An SIS under RSMo §557.011 means the court accepts a guilty plea but does not enter a conviction if probation is completed. Done properly it preserves the record from showing a conviction for most purposes.
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