Introduces arrangement and description proposal for lawsuits of custody from the collection of the Archive of the Judicial Court of Rio Grande do Sul. This collection consists of documentary resources that enable social studies, cultural, legal and historical. For organizing and accessing information, the cases were arranged and described by applying the archival functions according to the needs and specificities of the court files. Considering the Brazilian Standard of Archival Description, were defined and described the description levels base, section, subsection, series and process, which were described as the evidence presented by the Standard. The proposed description was applied along the lawsuits representatives of the First Republic (1889-1930). Analysis of the information described allows relations with facts and social, political and cultural aspects from the historical period considered, providing the scholars with numerous opportunities for research and allowing access to relevant information contained in court documents.164212227