Guide How to remove your record from Trellis

Trellis removes public, logged-out access to a docket page carrying your name for free, and you don't need a court order to ask. The request is a link sitting on the docket page itself, so finding your case comes first. The form behind it wants your name, an email address and a written explanation of why the record should come off. Every URL with your name on it is a separate request.

What you actually get

Public, logged-out access to the record is removed, and Trellis asks search engines not to index it. Trellis does this as a courtesy and can refuse: it says it has no legal obligation to redact anything absent a court order sealing the record. The case isn't deleted, sealed or expunged, and nothing changes at the courthouse or on the county portal. Closing a case off across Trellis and every other legal research site takes a court order.

What you have to send

No court order. The upload field at the bottom of the form is optional on this route, and an empty one doesn't sink the request. What you do have to produce is the written explanation, plus, if you're arguing physical safety or identity theft, the police report or credit-company letter that backs it up.

What stops it working

Starting anywhere but your own docket page. Trellis only takes a redaction request pressed from the URL you want redacted, and it doesn't process requests sent by email. Find the case, open the docket, and press the link on that page.

Open your docket page and press Request Redaction

Search your name on trellis.law, open the docket page carrying your case, and scroll to the bottom right corner. The Request Redaction link sits there, and pressing it from the page you want redacted is the only way in, which is exactly what Trellis's redaction instructions tell you to do.

If your name is on more than one docket, collect every Trellis URL before you start. Each one needs its own submission and its own written explanation. There's no bulk option and no way to name several cases in one request.

Fill in the form

Four things: your name, your email address, whether the records are about you, and why you want them redacted. That's the whole form. The court-order upload sits at the bottom and it's optional on this route, so leave it empty if you don't have one.

The explanation is the only part you control, and it has to substantiate the request. Say who you are, name the record, and state the concrete harm: an employer running a search, a landlord, someone using the docket to find where you live. Keep it to facts a stranger could check, and don't build it around a privacy law.

Attach whatever backs the harm you're describing. For physical safety, that's a police report or a court order about the threat. For identity theft, a police report or a letter from a credit reporting company. If you're a judge, a public official or in law enforcement, attach those credentials instead. And if you already hold an order sealing the record, attach it, because Trellis processes that one immediately.

What happens after you send it

Trellis publishes no turnaround. Requests get worked in the order they arrive, review runs a minimum of 48 hours, and support gets in touch if it needs more from you. There's no status page to refresh while you wait.

Once a request is approved, public logged-out access to that URL is removed and Trellis asks search engines not to index it, and Google is the slow part. Trellis puts re-ingestion of a redacted URL at up to four to six weeks and doesn't control that window. Check the URL yourself at the end of it instead of watching your search results every day. If the URL is dead and the result is still there, the next request goes to Google, not back to Trellis, and our guide to removing court records from Google covers that one.

If the record itself is wrong, start at the court

A redaction hides an accurate record. If the docket has an error in it, fix that at the issuing court first, then send Trellis the notice of errata and the corrected record. Trellis won't change a public record the court hasn't changed, so a correction that skips the courthouse goes nowhere.

What a redaction won't fix

A redaction reaches trellis.law and nothing else. Search your case caption in quotes today and count how many other sites carry the same docket, because each one is its own request with its own form and its own rules.

Trellis never charges for this, and it warns about third-party sites that sell the free request for a fee. So if trellis.law is the only site carrying your case, file it yourself and you don't need us. What it costs you is the work: one submission and one fresh explanation per URL, an open-ended wait with no deadline, then up to six weeks for search engines after that.

When Trellis isn't the only copy

If the same case also sits on UniCourt, the county portal or a news story, each of those is its own request with its own rules. Court record removal is $199, one time: every legal aggregator we can reach, plus twelve months of re-submission. You give us the facts once and we file all of them.

Have us do it.

Everything above, filed for you, chased for you, and reported back. One flat fee.

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Written by Drew Chapin, who ran all of this on his own name first.