About the Vermilion Parish Clerk of Court
Diane Meaux Broussard is the Vermilion Parish Clerk of Court. The Louisiana Clerks of Court Association (LCCA) directory dates her current tenure to July 2004. Her office occupies Suite 101 of the Vermilion Parish Courthouse on North State Street in Abbeville, a building the clerk's history page places in the heart of Abbeville's central business district.
Like every Louisiana clerk, she holds an elected, four-year office created by Article V, Section 28 of the state constitution. The office keeps the record of the district court for the parish and also serves as recorder of conveyances, mortgages, and other acts, with the clerk acting as ex officio notary public. The clerk's site lists elections, jury duty, and passports among the office's services, in addition to court and land records. State election law makes the clerk the parish's chief election officer.
Water is a large part of Vermilion's map. The Census Bureau measures about 1,172 square miles of land and roughly 360 square miles of water in the parish, and the state's Local Louisiana page says the parish is named for both the Vermilion River and Vermilion Bay. Population was 57,001 in the 2020 Census base and an estimated 57,641 in July 2024.
According to the clerk's history page, Vermilion Parish was carved out of Lafayette Parish by the legislature on March 25, 1844. That date matters for anyone tracing land or family history, because instruments recorded before 1844 for land now in Vermilion would generally be in Lafayette Parish records. The Lafayette clerk's About page says Lafayette Parish was itself carved out of St. Martin Parish in 1823.
Find the other 63 parishes in the Louisiana Clerks of Court directory.
Court records in Vermilion Parish
The clerk's site lays out the court side by department. The Civil Department takes civil suits, clerk's suits, adoptions, and successions. The Criminal Department receives filings from the 15th Judicial District Attorney for Vermilion cases. A Family Court Department handles domestic matters, and juvenile filings are combined with criminal non-support. A Traffic Department files citations, though the clerk notes that it does not set or collect fines.
Civil and probate files are kept by the Records Department, which also holds marriage and military records. The fees page (viewed October 2026) lists a criminal search at $20 per name. That search reflects Vermilion Parish filings; it is not a statewide background check, and the State Police say their central criminal history file is closed to the public.
Expungement motions are filed through the Criminal Department. The clerk lists a $200 clerk fee, with separate payments owed to other agencies. Under Louisiana's Code of Criminal Procedure, an expunged record is removed from public access but not destroyed, and it remains available to law enforcement and certain other agencies.
Online access to court files is less clear. The clerk's menu links an "Online Records" web inquiry system, but that site could not be reached when it was checked for this page in October 2026, so its coverage and pricing could not be confirmed. Electronic filing is linked to eClerks LA, and the clerk posts the statewide e-filing procedures dated May 12, 2025.
Juvenile records are closed by law; the Children's Code makes them confidential except for traffic violations. The statewide guides to court records and criminal records explain how access works across Louisiana.
Land, mortgage, and property records
Vermilion's recording fees are spelled out on the clerk's fees page, viewed October 2026. Recording a document in one index book costs $105 for 1 to 5 pages, $205 for 6 to 25 pages, and $305 for 26 to 50 pages. Those amounts include a $5 fee for the Louisiana Clerks' Remote Access Authority, up to 10 names, and one certified copy. A mortgage certificate is $20 for one name and one property. Copies are $1.00 per page if you make them yourself or $2.00 if a deputy makes them, and certified copies are $10.00.
Certificate requests (mortgage, non-lien, and UCC) must be made in writing, and the clerk accepts them by fax. In the courthouse, the Research Department keeps property records indexed back to 1936 and has a work area for abstracters.
For remote searching, the clerk's Online Records menu sends conveyance, mortgage, and marriage searches to eClerks LA, the statewide portal. The clerk's site does not post Vermilion's subscription prices, and it does not say which e-recording services the office accepts, so check with the office before relying on either.
Louisiana's Civil Code requires a sale or mortgage of land to be recorded in the parish where the land lies. Vermilion borders five parishes. The Lafayette clerk's directions page places Vermilion to the south of Lafayette Parish, so land along that line may also appear with the Lafayette Parish Clerk of Court. On the other sides, the Iberia Parish Clerk of Court in New Iberia, the Acadia Parish Clerk of Court in Crowley, the Jefferson Davis Parish Clerk of Court, and the Cameron Parish Clerk of Court each keep their own records.
The Louisiana property records guide covers conveyance and mortgage records statewide.
Marriage licenses and family records
The Vermilion clerk issues marriage licenses in Suite 101 of the courthouse, 8:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., Monday to Friday. According to the clerk's marriage page (viewed October 2026), the fee is $27.50 by cash, check, or credit or debit card, and a certified copy after recording is $10.00. One party may apply with the documents for both.
Buy the license at least 24 hours ahead of the ceremony. That matches Louisiana law, which bars an officiant from performing the ceremony until 24 hours have passed since the license was issued, unless a judge or authorized justice of the peace waives the delay for serious reasons. The license expires 30 days after issuance and can be used only for a ceremony in Louisiana.
The office also sells Louisiana birth certificates ($34, or $48 with a birth card) and death certificates ($26), in person only and for Louisiana records only, according to the clerk's birth certificate page.
Recorded Vermilion marriages stay with this clerk. The state's Vital Records Registry keeps marriage records only for Orleans Parish licenses, so a certified copy of a Vermilion marriage comes from Abbeville. Divorce decrees are the same: Vital Records does not issue them, and a certified copy comes from the clerk where the divorce was granted. Read the marriage records guide and divorce records guide for the statewide rules.
Courts that serve Vermilion Parish
The 15th Judicial District Court covers Vermilion together with Acadia and Lafayette parishes. The court's website lists Divisions A through M and a commissioner, and pages for Family Court, Kids First, Families in Need of Services, misdemeanor probation, and specialty court. According to the Acadia clerk's judges page, Divisions C and G sit at the Vermilion courthouse, in Suites 220 and 210. Family matters are a function of the district court here, not a separate court.
Two city courts operate in the parish. Abbeville City Court is at 208 South State Street, and the City of Abbeville lists its phone as 337-893-1513. Kaplan City Court is named in the Code of Civil Procedure's list of city courts; no official website for it was verified. The parish clerk's site does not describe city court records, although its fees page lists a City Court phone number, 337-893-1513, among the offices to call about criminal fees paid outside the clerk's office.
Appeals from Vermilion Parish go to the Court of Appeal, Third Circuit in Lake Charles.
Visiting the Vermilion Parish courthouse
The building is worth a look even if you are only there to file a deed. The clerk's history page says the present courthouse, designed by A. Hays Town, was dedicated on May 30, 1952. It is the third courthouse on a site that Father Antoine Megret donated for a wooden courthouse in 1847. The clerk describes a six-column Greek temple portico on the front, a rear veranda patterned after a plantation home, and a free-standing circular stairway that rises to the second-floor courtrooms.
The clerk's office is on the first floor in Suite 101 and keeps hours of 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday to Friday, closed weekends, according to the clerk's site. The Vermilion Parish Assessor's office is in the same courthouse, and the assessor's site gives its hours as 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., so a property errand can cover both offices in one trip if you arrive after 8:30 and leave before 4:00.
The clerk's site does not publish an email address (the LCCA directory lists one), so the phone or fax is the more direct route. Fax numbers vary across the site: the header and Contact Us page give 337-898-4556, while the courthouse block on the home page and some department pages give 337-898-9803. The LCCA directory lists a third number. Call 337-898-1992 to confirm before faxing anything time sensitive.
Other Vermilion Parish offices
Sheriff Eddie Langlinais leads the Vermilion Parish Sheriff's Office, according to the Louisiana Sheriffs' Association, and the office's site is vermilionsheriff.gov. The sheriff also serves as the parish's property tax collector. The sheriff's offices guide and the inmate search guide have more.
Gabe Marceaux, CLA, is the Vermilion Parish Assessor, with an office in the courthouse and a website at vermilionassessor.org. The assessors guide explains assessed value and the homestead exemption.
The Vermilion Parish Police Jury governs the parish and meets on the third Wednesday of each month, according to its website at vppj.org. An older domain that some listings still show for the police jury now leads to an unrelated site, so use vppj.org. The parish government guide explains how police juries are organized.