Trellis is a legal analytics platform focused primarily on state court records. Many court record databases lean heavily on federal data from PACER. Trellis indexes state-level cases that are often harder to find elsewhere. That focus makes Trellis a problem for people whose state court records show up in Google. If you have been involved in a state court proceeding and Trellis has a page with your name on it, that page can rank prominently in search results.
What Trellis does differently
Trellis.law collects data from state trial courts across the United States. Their platform is built for attorneys and legal researchers who want to analyze judicial behavior, case outcomes, and litigation trends. The public-facing pages they create are indexed by Google. That is where the problem starts for everyday people.
Trellis focuses on state courts. It often surfaces records that other platforms miss. Family court cases, civil disputes, landlord-tenant matters, and local criminal cases that never made it into the federal system can all appear here. You might clear your name from CourtListener and Justia and still find a Trellis page showing up in search results.
How to request removal from Trellis
Step one: visit Trellis.law and search for your name. Identify all pages that reference you and save the full URLs.
Step two: go to Trellis's removal request page. This is the official channel for requesting that your records be taken down or de-indexed from their platform.
Step three: send a clear, written request that includes the specific URLs you want removed, your full legal name, and an explanation of why the listing is causing harm. If you have documentation showing that the case was dismissed, sealed, or expunged, include that. Court orders carry significant weight with Trellis.
Step four: allow two to three weeks for a response. Trellis is a smaller operation than some of the other legal data companies, and response times can vary. If you do not hear back, follow up with a second request that references your original submission.
Step five: once Trellis confirms removal or de-indexing, check Google search results over the following weeks. If the cached page persists, use Google Search Console or Google's URL removal tool to request that the cached version be cleared.
When the request does not work
If Trellis declines your request, you have options. Providing a court order for expungement or sealing is your strongest option. Without one, you may need to work with an attorney to draft a formal legal demand. In parallel, you can submit a Google removal request for the specific Trellis URL. You can also pursue suppression strategies to push the page further down in search results.
Do not stop at Trellis
State court records that appear on Trellis often appear on other platforms as well. Popular scraping sites include CourtListener, Justia, UniCourt, PacerMonitor, DocketBird, and Casemine. You need to address all of them. Our complete court record removal guide explains the full workflow so you can tackle everything systematically.
If you have tried these steps and are still stuck, or if you just do not have the time, we can help. Reach out to our team and we will take it from here.
Related resources
- Complete Court Record Removal Guide
- Remove from CourtListener
- Remove from Justia
- Court Record Removal Services
The broader context: why state court records create lasting online harm
Trellis reflects a wider pattern in how public records migrate online. These records persist long after the underlying proceedings have ended. A Pew Research survey on Americans and privacy found that most adults are concerned about how companies use their data. They feel they have little practical ability to control what is out there. A Trellis listing is a concrete example of that gap. The platform's legal right to publish the record and your ability to do anything about it are not equal.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation's work on privacy has long documented how aggregation makes individual data points far more damaging than they appear in isolation. A single state court record might seem minor. Pair it with your employer, city, and professional profile in search results, and the harm compounds quickly. That aggregation problem is precisely what makes platforms like Trellis different from a courthouse clerk's physical filing cabinet. The Privacy Rights Clearinghouse consumer guides offer practical framing for people working through exactly this situation, including how to document harm when making formal removal requests.
For anyone whose records involve a federal dimension, the PACER system is the authoritative source for federal case data. Understanding the distinction between what lives there versus what Trellis indexes at the state level matters when you prioritize which platforms to address first. Research published through the Brennan Center for Justice shows that records of arrests without convictions, and of cases that were later dismissed, create employment and housing barriers when they surface in online searches. Getting a Trellis page down is not just cosmetic. It has real consequences.
How we handle Trellis removals
Clients often come to us after a civil dispute turns into a Trellis listing that ranks highly in Google for their name. Even when a case is settled and dismissed, Trellis may still show the original filing. This can flag professional license renewals and deter prospective clients. When this happens, we submit a removal request with a copy of the dismissal order attached. Once Trellis de-indexes the page, we follow up with a Google cache removal request to clear it from search results.
Founders and executives frequently deal with old landlord-tenant cases showing up on Trellis when investors search their names. The listing often shows only the initial filing, not the favorable outcome. Initial removal requests submitted through standard forms often go unanswered. We step in with a structured legal demand letter referencing the final judgment. We then run a suppression campaign to move owned profiles above where the cached result appeared. This provides cleaner search results during critical funding or hiring periods.
The scale of online court records
The scale of the problem is large. The Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that state courts process tens of millions of cases each year. Even a small fraction of those cases indexed by platforms like Trellis represents thousands of people whose names appear in public-facing search results. State-level cases, landlord-tenant disputes, civil claims, and misdemeanor proceedings make up the bulk of that volume. These are the exact case types Trellis specializes in collecting.
The Electronic Privacy Information Center tracks the growth of court record aggregation platforms. They note how public-record doctrine was designed for in-person courthouse access. It was never intended to enable automated, globally indexed databases. That legal gap means there is no federal statute that forces Trellis or similar platforms to honor a removal request. Your ability to remove a record comes from court orders, expungement statutes, and platform policies, not from a clear statutory right. Knowing this helps you set realistic expectations and prepare stronger documentation before you submit your request.
The Brennan Center for Justice notes that people with online court records face barriers to employment and housing, even when the underlying case resulted in no conviction. Employers who run informal name searches before a formal background check encounter Trellis pages before they ever see a resume. This is the sequence that plays out when a civil dispute or dismissed charge lives high on a Google results page. The timeline matters. Every week a Trellis page stays indexed is a week it can influence a decision someone is making about you.
This explains why a systematic approach beats a one-time request. Trellis removal is step one. Clearing cached pages, auditing parallel platforms, and building positive search presence to displace remaining results is the full picture. The problem is structural. The response has to be structured too.
The importance of follow-through
Business owners often reach out after losing bids or deals due to a search result. A Trellis page for an old civil dispute can appear directly below a company website. Even if a case was settled with no finding against the business owner, the Trellis listing may only show the initial complaint. If a standard removal request gets no response, we submit a second request with settlement documentation attached. We reference the original submission date and escalate through support contacts. Once Trellis de-indexes the page, we use Google's URL removal tool to clear the cached version. We then publish new content on the client's website to occupy the search real estate the Trellis listing held. This pushes down negative results and ensures a clean, professional online presence.