Court records online: what anyone can see, and what stays sealed

Court files are public for a reason most people would agree with: justice is supposed to happen where everyone can watch it. The trouble is that "public" once meant a clerk's office with limited hours and a line at the window. Now it often means a search box that anyone, anywhere, can type a name into.

I spent years on the other side of that window, first as a deputy clerk and later as a paralegal pulling files for cases. This is a plain account of what a court record contains, what the rules keep out of it, what stays closed entirely, and what to do when a record about you is wrong or should no longer be visible.

Two systems, very different doors

The United States runs two court systems side by side, and they publish records in different ways.

Federal courts put their files in PACER, short for Public Access to Court Electronic Records. It covers the district courts, the bankruptcy courts and the courts of appeals, and the judiciary says it holds more than a billion documents. Access costs money, though less than people expect. According to the PACER fee page, the charge is 10 cents a page, capped at 3 dollars for a single document, and fees are waived for anyone who runs up 30 dollars or less in a quarter. Judges' written opinions are free, and so is anything you view on the public terminals at a federal courthouse. The PACER Case Locator searches across all federal courts at once.

State courts handle most of the cases in the country: traffic, small claims, evictions, debt collection, divorce, most criminal cases. Every state sets its own rules for putting them online. Some run one statewide portal. Others leave it to each county, so one county may show full documents online while the county next door shows only an index and makes you come in for the papers. Many states allow broader access at the courthouse than they allow over the internet, which surprises people who assume the online version is the whole file.

So the first question when you want to know what is out there about you is always: which court, and which state.

Reading a docket: what you will see, and what it means

A docket is the running list of everything filed and decided in a case. Most online systems show the docket even when the documents themselves are behind a fee or at the courthouse. Here is a fictional civil case, Sample Lending LLC v. Jane Example, the kind of debt collection case that fills a large share of any county's civil docket.

The last line deserves a note from the counter side. The creditor, not the court, usually has to file the satisfaction once you pay. When it does not happen, the docket keeps showing an open judgment, and every screening company that copies the docket repeats it. If you paid a judgment and the docket does not show it, ask the creditor in writing to file the satisfaction, keep proof of payment, and ask the clerk what your state's procedure is if the creditor will not act.

Notice, too, how much of that docket is about where Jane lives. The complaint and the return of service both put an address in the file, the same way a deed does at the recorder's office, which is part of why your home address is public record in more than one place.

A criminal docket follows the same pattern with different entries: the charges, the arrest or summons date, bail, hearings, and the disposition. The disposition is the word that matters most. Dismissed, acquitted, deferred, convicted. A charge that was dropped still appears on the docket unless the record is later sealed or cleared.

What the rules keep out of the file

Courts do try to keep the most sensitive identifiers out of public filings. In federal court, Rule 5.2 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure says a filing may include only the last four digits of a Social Security or taxpayer number, only the year of a person's birth, only a minor's initials, and only the last four digits of a financial account number. The criminal rules have a matching provision. The same rule limits remote public access in Social Security benefit appeals and immigration cases to the docket and the court's decisions; the full file is available to the parties and at the courthouse.

Two catches. First, the burden of redacting falls on whoever files the document, and a person who files their own information without redacting it waives the protection. Second, older files from before these rules may contain full numbers. Many state courts follow similar redaction rules, but they vary, and scanned historical files are where full dates of birth and account numbers still turn up.

Protection orders get special treatment. Federal law, at 18 U.S.C. 2265(d)(3), bars states, territories and tribes from publishing on the internet information about a protection order petition or order if doing so would be likely to reveal the identity or location of the person it protects.

What stays closed

Is a sealed record gone?

No. Sealing means the public cannot see the record, but it still exists. The court can see it, and depending on the state, so can law enforcement and some licensing agencies. A sealed case often disappears from the public index entirely, so a search returns nothing at all.

Then what is expungement?

It depends on the state, and the words are used loosely. In some states an expunged record is destroyed or treated as if the event never happened. In others "expungement" is just the local word for sealing. Who qualifies, how long you wait, and which offenses are eligible are all set by state law. Federal law offers very few ways to clear a federal conviction.

Which cases are closed from the start?

Juvenile delinquency cases are generally confidential, though states differ on exceptions for serious offenses. Adoption files are sealed almost everywhere. Child abuse and neglect cases, mental health commitments and grand jury materials are usually closed. Family cases are mixed: in many states the divorce file itself is public while financial affidavits, custody evaluations and records about children are sealed or restricted.

Can a record clear on its own?

In a growing number of states, yes. Pennsylvania passed the first so-called clean slate law in 2018, which seals many older, lower-level records automatically once a waiting period passes, without anyone filing a petition. Several other states have since passed their own versions, each with different eligibility rules and timelines.

How a mistake travels

Court systems sell or provide bulk data, and background screening companies and people-search sites take it in on their own schedules. That creates two problems I saw over and over.

The first is stale data. A case is dismissed, or sealed a year later, but a company that copied the docket before that happened keeps the old version until it refreshes, and some never do. The second is a bad match. Two people with the same name in the same county get blended, and a stranger's eviction or conviction lands in your report. Matching on name alone is the usual cause.

If the record shows up in a background check used for a job, an apartment, credit or insurance, the Fair Credit Reporting Act applies. The screening company has to follow reasonable procedures to keep reports accurate, and you have the right to dispute an error and have it investigated. The law also limits what can be reported: arrests that did not lead to a conviction generally cannot appear once they are more than seven years old, although that limit does not apply to jobs paying 75,000 dollars a year or more. Federal law puts no time limit on convictions, and some states set shorter ones. Hannah covers those rights in detail in the FCRA and people-search sites.

People-search sites usually say they are not consumer reporting agencies, which means the dispute process does not apply. There, your tool is the opt-out, and as why opt-outs don't stick explains, it often has to be repeated.

Fixing it, in order

Here is the routine I would follow, whether the problem is a wrong record or an old one that should no longer be public.

1. Get the court's own record. Ask the clerk for a copy of the docket and the disposition, certified if you can. This is your proof, and every later step depends on it.
2. Fix clerical errors at the source. If the court file itself has a wrong date of birth, a misspelled name or a disposition entered incorrectly, tell the clerk's office and bring documents. Clerks can correct many clerical mistakes. Anything that changes what the court decided needs a motion before the judge.
3. Find out whether you qualify for sealing or expungement. Eligibility is technical, and a missed detail can mean a denied petition and another waiting period. Talk to a lawyer or a legal aid office. Many legal aid groups run record clearing clinics, and the legal aid page on USA.gov points to local programs for people with low or moderate incomes.
4. Send the order downstream. Once a court seals or clears a record, send a copy of the order to any background screening company that reported it and ask them to update their file. File opt-outs with the people-search sites that show it.
5. Check again in a few months. Search your own name on the court portal and on the sites you contacted. Keep the court order in a folder you can find, because you may need to send it more than once.

The court's file is the original, and everything else is a copy. Fix the original first, then chase the copies.