Copy the URL, and count how many there are
The form takes one record URL at a time, so start by finding all of them. Open the UniCourt page that came up on your name, copy the address out of the browser bar, then search the site for your name and for the case caption and list every other hit. There's no account-level or name-level opt-out here, so a case sitting on three UniCourt URLs is three separate requests.
Keep that list where you'll find it in six months. You'll file one request per URL, you'll re-check each one after a decision, and you'll check them again months later. Paste the URLs into a note with today's date beside each one.
Check that you're one of the three people who can file
Eligibility is the gate, and it has exactly three slots. UniCourt's public records policy says it "only considers requests submitted by a party to the public record, a legal guardian or fiduciary of a party to the record, or an attorney representing a party to the record." If you're the person named in the caption, you're in.
A reputation firm isn't on that list, so you sign and submit the request yourself, or your attorney of record does it for you. We can build the packet and hand it over ready to send. The form asks your relationship to the record before it asks anything else, and attorneys add a bar number and bar state.
Check the four factors, then send it anyway
UniCourt weighs four factors, quoted from its policy: "(1) Has the record been sealed or expunged by a court order? (2) Does the record expose the requestor to an increased risk of physical harm? (3) Is the requestor a victim of identity theft, and is the record a result of this theft? (4) Does the record concern and adversely affect a minor?" The list isn't exclusive, but there's no listed ground for simply not wanting the case online.
If none of the four fits, and for most business disputes, divorces, debt collection suits, employment claims, landlord-tenant matters and civil judgments none of them does, send the request anyway. UniCourt's policy says the factors are not exclusive and asks you to submit a request for review even when yours doesn't fall within one, and it charges nothing to file or to appeal. A motion to seal or expunge in the court that heard the case is the route that reaches the source, and it's where you go when the request is denied or when the court's own file is what needs moving. UniCourt's own policy says the record can only be sealed by a court order. It's the work your attorney does, and you come back to UniCourt holding the order.
Get the document before you touch the form
Get the conformed order from the clerk first, or the police report if you're filing on physical harm, identity theft, or harm to a minor. Upload it. Don't describe it. UniCourt only considers requests that provide all of the required information and supporting documentation, and it decides on what you attach.
Bring the stamped order, not your memory of what the judge said. A complainant told the BBB in August 2026 that a sealed and dismissed divorce case was online, and UniCourt's answer was that the docket wasn't sealed. If you can't put your hands on a copy today, that's the errand to run first.
Skip the CCPA request form. It's open to California residents only, it wants a government ID upload, and its own page says the CCPA does not apply to court records. The redaction form doesn't ask for your ID, and it's the one that reaches this page.
Fill in the form and send it, free
The Public Records Redaction Request asks for the record URL, your relationship to it, your name, a full mailing address, an email and a confirming email, a phone number and a confirming phone number, your country and state of residence, whether the record has been sealed or expunged, your stated reason, and the upload. Attorneys add the bar number and bar state, and the last box is a declaration under penalty of perjury.
It's free at every stage, including the appeal, and UniCourt says so on its own policy page. It adds that if a third-party company is charging you to redact a record UniCourt published, you can submit the request for free directly. Nobody should be billing you for this form, us included.
Wait 30 days, then about 30 more
UniCourt states it typically decides a request within 30 days and communicates the decision in writing. A grant de-indexes the URL, and UniCourt estimates that lands within about 30 days after the decision while saying plainly that it doesn't control the search engines. Budget roughly 60 days from send to clean result, and expect cached snippets in between.
Those are UniCourt's stated targets, not measured outcomes, and it publishes no approval rate and no median turnaround. Set your own reminders and re-check the URL at 60, 90, and 180 days. One complainant on that same BBB page said removed items came back months later.
Appeal within 30 days, and know what a grant leaves
You can appeal within 30 days of the decision, and the appeal has to carry substantive new documentation. UniCourt states that appeals without it will be denied and that all appeals are final.
A granted request de-indexes a UniCourt URL. It doesn't seal, expunge, or change the court's own record. If the court's own file is what you need moved, the motion to seal is the work, and nothing you send UniCourt substitutes for it.
One request per URL, and the clock runs about 60 days on each. Then you search the caption again at 60, 90, and 180 days and re-file whatever came back. That's what this costs you in time, and it repeats on any other site carrying the case.