The First Judicial District Court (sometimes referred to simply as the District Court or as the First District Court) was created by act of the Louisiana Legislature in 1813. The court had geographical jurisdiction over the First Judicial District of the State, including Orleans, Plaquemines, St. Bernard, St. Charle s, and St. John the Baptist Parishes. When Jefferson Parish was created out of Orleans in 1825, it too was placed within the First Judicial District. At the outset the court had both civil and criminal original jurisdiction as well as jurisdiction in appeals from the Parish Courts in its constituent parishes (excepting Orleans, whose appeals went directly to the Louisiana Supreme Court).

In 1818 the Court's criminal jurisdiction was given to a new Criminal Court of the City of New Orleans which, in the following year, was enlarged to cover the entire district. Originally the Court had one judge, learned in the law, and appointed by the Governor. In 1826 a second, junior, judge was added by act of the Legislature. When a new judicial system was established in 1846, the parishes of the original First Judicial District were reorganized as follows: St. Bernard and Plaquemines became the Second District; Jefferson, the Third; and St. Charles and St. John, part of the Fourth. Orleans remained as the only parish in the First Judicial District, with five separate courts of various civil and criminal jurisdictions. Orleans Parish suits still pending in the First Judicial District Court in 1846 were transferred to the new Fifth District Court.