How to redact court documents: a practical checklist

Start with your court's rules

Many courts have rules about which personal details must be removed or shortened in documents that become public, and the rules differ between courts and types of case. Check the rules of the court you're filing in, or ask your lawyer or the court clerk, before deciding what to hide. This guide covers the practical side of doing it properly; it isn't legal advice.

Details commonly redacted

Depending on the court and the case, filings and exhibits often have these removed or shortened:

• Government ID numbers, such as Social Security numbers or national ID numbers.
• Bank account and card numbers, often shortened to the last few digits.
• Dates of birth, sometimes shortened to the year.
• Names of children, sometimes replaced with initials.
• Home addresses, phone numbers and email addresses of parties and witnesses.
• Medical details and anything covered by a protective order.

If a rule says to show only part of a number, cover the rest and leave the allowed digits visible rather than hiding the whole field.

Redact the filing properly

1. Work on a copy, and keep the unredacted original somewhere safe.
2. Open the copy in Redact PDF. ID numbers, account numbers, emails, phone numbers and dates of birth are highlighted.
3. Use Find and redact for names that appear throughout, such as a child's name. Every match on every page is covered.
4. Draw boxes over signatures, handwritten notes and exhibit stamps that contain personal details.
5. Choose Solid boxes. Blur is not appropriate for legal redaction.
6. Export, then review every flag from the final OCR check.

Check before you file

Redacted filings have repeatedly been exposed because a black box was drawn on top of text that stayed in the file. Before filing:

• Run the PDF through the PDF Redaction Checker to find text under boxes, metadata, comments, form fields and attachments.
• Search the file for a name or number you hid.
• Read every page once more, including exhibits, footers and attachments.
• Confirm the file still meets any format requirements your court has.

The exported PDF is built from page images, so its text isn't selectable or searchable. Some courts require text-searchable filings. Check the requirements, and ask the clerk if you're not sure.

More on testing: how to check if a PDF is redacted.