The Civil District Court for the Parish of Orleans was created by the Louisiana Constitution of 1879 and began deliberations in the following year. It was to have no fewer than five judges (men who were learned in the law and who had been practicing for five years previously) who were appointed by the Governor for eight year terms (initially, three judges were appointed for four years and two for eight years). The Constitution empowered the Legislature to increase the number of judges to a maximum of nine.

The Court had exclusive and general probate jurisdiction and exclusive civil jurisdiction in all causes where the amount in dispute or to be distributed exceeded one hundred dollars, exclusive of interest. All suits pending before the previously existing civil courts were transferred to the new entity and given new docket numbers.

In addition to the judges, Civil District Court was to have one clerk (who also served ex-officio as clerk of the Court of Appeals for Orleans Parish), elected by the qualified voters of the parish for a term of four years. Each of the judges was further empowered to appoint a minute clerk. The Legislature subsequently, in 1880, specified the duties of the minute clerks as "to keep the minutes of the court, issue all notices, copies of rules and orders entered on the minutes and to make docket entries for the causes and proceedings of the court." The Clerk of Civil District Court appointed, with the consent of the judges, "such deputies as may be necessary to perform efficiently the duties of said office."

The Constitution also provided for election, for a four-year term, of a Civil Sheriff for the parish. That individual (a citizen of Louisiana, resident and voter of New Orleans, and at least twenty-five years old) served as executive officer of the Court, attended its sittings, and executed its writs and mandates.

The Constitution of 1898 provided that the Court's judges be elected by a plurality of the qualified electors of the Parish of Orleans for the term of twelve years. It further specified the jurisdiction of the Court to include "...suits by married women for separation of property, in suits for separation from bed and board, for divorce, for nullity of marriage, or for interdiction, and in suits involving title to immovable property, or to office or other public position, or civil or political rights; and in all other cases, except as herein- after provided, where no specific amount is in contest, and of all proceedings for the appointment of receivers or liquidators to corporations or partnerships." In addition, the new Constitution gave the court authority to issue "all such writs, process and orders as may be necessary or proper for the purposes of the jurisdiction herein conferred upon it."

The 1898 law included additional provisions that had some bearing on the records that the Court produced:

• Previous to the allotment or assignment of a case, any judge of said court may, for the purposes of such case, make interlocutory orders, and issue and grant conservatory writs and executory process.
• Applications for naturalization, for emancipation, and by married women for authorization, when there is consent given and no issue joined, or where there is no contest, suits for nullity, and for revival of judgment, and suits in which is claimed an interest in property or funds as to which a particular judge has acquired jurisdiction, need not be allotted or especially assigned, but shall be controlled by law or by rules to be adopted by the court.
• Judgments homologating accounts, which have been duly advertised, when not opposed, or so far as not opposed, may be rendered and signed either in term time or vacation; and by any judge, in the absence or disability of the judge to whom the case has been allotted.
• The judges of said Civil District Court shall be authorized to adopt rules, not in conflict with law, regulating the allotment, assignment and disposition of cases, the order in which they shall be tried, and the proceedings in such trials, and to sit en banc for the purpose of testing the bonds and sureties of the clerk of the court, the recorder of mortgages, the register of conveyances, and the civil sheriff; for the trial and removal of the clerk and civil sheriff, or either of them, for the selection of jurors, and in other cases when the action of the court as a whole is required.