Guide How to remove bankruptcy records from Google

You searched your name and found your bankruptcy case on a site you've never heard of. Write down the exact URL of every site it shows up on before you send anything, because each request below covers only the URLs you list. Three of the companies below take a free request that pulls the page out of Google. Two publish no process at all, and Google itself is a separate request on top.

You get de-indexed, not deleted

Justia, UniCourt and CourtListener all do the same thing: the page stops coming up on your name and stays live at the same address. Anyone holding the direct link still opens it. All three say so in writing, and CourtListener adds that removals not made under a court order are at its sole discretion.

What you have to send

Justia takes the exact URLs, your name and your email. CourtListener asks for links to the specific pages, and that's the whole stated requirement. Neither one charges a fee or wants an ID. UniCourt is the one that wants documents: a conformed copy of the court order if you're claiming the case was sealed or expunged, a police report if you're claiming identity theft. An assertion with nothing attached gets denied.

What stops it working

UniCourt's policy weighs four grounds: sealed or expunged by court order, risk of physical harm, identity theft, or harm to a minor. An ordinary consumer bankruptcy with none of those is a general objection to being online, which is discretionary and has no listed ground. Appeals need documentation you didn't already send, and they're final, so don't send a thin request expecting to fix it later.

Find every URL before you send anything

Search your full name in quotes alongside the case number or the district, and write down the exact URL of every hit. Each request below covers the URLs you list and nothing else, so a page pulled at one site leaves the others sitting exactly where they were.

Don't start at the court. PACER has no removal, suppression or opt-out process to invoke, so anything you send there moves nothing. The work is at the companies below, plus Google.

Justia: one form, no documents

Go to Justia's support form, check the box for blocking a Justia link from search engines, and paste the exact URLs into the field that asks for the links you want blocked, then add anything else in the second comments box, which is also required. Your name and email are required too. No documents, no ID, no fee.

What you get is a search-engine block. Justia won't fully remove a docket without a court order sealing the record or designating it for removal from the public record, and it publishes no timeline for the block either.

Then check the work yourself. Don't treat a confirmation email as the finish line: search the same name and case number again at 30 and 60 days, and if the page is still coming up, send the form again with the URL that's still ranking.

CourtListener may have blocked it already

Check before you write. Search your name on CourtListener first, because if nothing of yours comes up there, you have nothing to send. If something does, note whether what ranks is the docket page or a document page inside it.

Send the docket page. A RECAP document page is already noindexed, so a request on one buys you nothing, and the docket page is the surface they actually block. Use the removal option on CourtListener's contact page, list the specific URLs, and fill it in by hand in a browser, because the form sits behind a bot check.

Their policy is blunt about the rest. They won't delete a public document without a court order, they publish no turnaround, and they warn that the search engines may not drop your case from their results for many months, if at all.

UniCourt takes about 60 days, and you have to file it yourself

The redaction request is free at every stage including the appeal, and UniCourt's policy says so in those words. Only a party to the record, a legal guardian or fiduciary, or an attorney representing a party can file it, so a reputation firm submitting it on your behalf is a denial. It's you or your attorney of record, nobody else.

The form wants your name, mailing address, an email and a phone number with both confirmed, your country and state of residence, the exact UniCourt URL, your relationship to the record, a bar number and bar state if you're claiming attorney status, the reason you're asking, and the court order or police report that reason requires. Verify the confirmation email inside 14 days or the request dies quietly.

UniCourt targets a decision in 30 days and says de-indexing takes roughly 30 more, so budget about 60 days. If you're denied, the appeal window is 30 days from the notice, and it only gets considered with substantive documentation you hadn't already sent.

PacerMonitor and DocketBird

PacerMonitor is the hard one. Its privacy policy contains no removal, opt-out or deletion process of any kind, and the only address published anywhere in it is support@pacermonitor.com. Send your URLs there, but there's no procedure, no standard and no timeline behind it, so don't build your plan around a reply.

DocketBird's removal pages are gone. Checked September 8, 2026: the request-removal URL that other guides still send you to now redirects to the homepage, and the paid removal-service page returns a missing page. Send your URLs to the address on its contact page instead. Its privacy policy also reserves the right to post a notice that case materials are hidden because someone asked, so decide whether you want that marker before you write.

The two things Google will act on

Your street address is on the petition. That address comes out of Google's results even though the bankruptcy doesn't, through personal information removal, which also covers your phone, email, government ID numbers and bank and card numbers. File it on every republisher URL that shows the address.

The second lever is exploitative removal practices, and all three conditions have to hold: you're the subject of the content, the site isn't a business review site, and the site requires payment to take the content down. So never pay a court-record site to remove a docket. A fee demand is the thing that gets the links pulled for free.

Submit the exact URLs, one per line, on Google's removal form, with screenshots and your affirmation that you're the subject. Google publishes no decision time for either request, so file them and get on with the rest of the list instead of waiting on a date.

What none of this changes, and when to check again

Pulling a copy out of Google doesn't seal or expunge the court's own record. The case stays public and stays name-searchable through the PACER Case Locator by anyone who opens an account, so a lender, an employer's screening vendor or a reporter pulling PACER directly still finds it. If the goal is that nobody can learn you filed, no procedure and no service delivers that.

Don't spend a request on state privacy law. Court-record data is publicly available information, so it's exempt from the CCPA's right to delete, and the request burns 45 days and comes back denied. The credit-reporting clock runs separately, and nothing on this page moves it.

Then re-check. Look at every address you filed on at 60, 90 and 180 days, search your name again for URLs that weren't there the first time, and send a fresh request on each new one, because UniCourt's process is per-URL.

One case, a separate request at every site

Court Record Removal is $199. We find every copy, file the requests we're allowed to file, prepare the one UniCourt requires you to sign yourself, and keep re-submitting for twelve months as new URLs appear.

Have us do it.

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

See the service

Every guide we publish is free and ungated. Browse all of them, see what we do and what it costs, or read why we built this company.

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