Are Court Records Public? What's Actually Accessible Online (2026 Guide)

The Constitutional and Statutory Basis for Public Court Records

The presumption of public access to court records in the United States is rooted in the First Amendment and common law tradition. Public access to judicial proceedings ensures government accountability, deters judicial misconduct, and allows the public to evaluate the fairness of the justice system. This presumption is not absolute - courts have recognized that it can be overcome by competing interests, including privacy, national security, and the protection of vulnerable parties - but it is the default rule. For more information, visit the PACER public access.

At the federal level, the right of public access to court records is reflected in Rule 77 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (which requires courts to be open) and in the Electronic Public Access program that funds PACER, the federal courts' public access system. At the state level, access is governed by each state's court rules and public records statutes, which vary significantly in scope and detail. Learn more about expungement vs. record sealing on our blog.

The practical consequence of the public access presumption is that most civil and criminal court filings - complaints, answers, motions, briefs, orders, and judgments - are available to anyone who requests them from the clerk's office or accesses them through an online portal. This was always true in principle; what changed in the past decade is the infrastructure for finding and accessing those records remotely and at no meaningful cost. Learn more about court record removal on our blog.

Federal Court Records: PACER and the Federal System

Federal courts use a unified electronic filing and access system called PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records), operated by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. PACER provides public access to case dockets, filings, and documents from all federal district courts, circuit courts of appeal, and the bankruptcy courts. For more information, visit the FTC background checks.

Access to PACER requires registration and charges fees per page accessed (currently $0.10 per page, with a quarterly cap for small users). Despite this fee structure, PACER is accessible to anyone who registers - there is no credential requirement beyond registration. Law libraries and some public libraries offer free PACER access terminals. Legal aggregator sites have scraped PACER content extensively to create free, searchable indexes of federal case information.

Federal court records that are publicly accessible through PACER include: civil case dockets and most filed documents, criminal case dockets (with some restrictions on certain document types), appellate court records and opinions, and bankruptcy case filings. Access restrictions apply to grand jury materials, juvenile records in federal proceedings, and certain sealed documents.

State Court Records: A Patchwork of Access Rules

State court systems are far less uniform than the federal system. Each state maintains its own court records management infrastructure, its own public access policies, and its own online access capabilities. Understanding the state-specific picture is essential because most civil litigation - and much of the criminal case activity that concerns people searching for reputation management solutions - occurs in state courts, not federal courts. For more information, visit the FOIA.

States can be broadly categorized into three groups based on their online access infrastructure:

• Comprehensive online access states: States like California (through the California Courts public access portal), Florida (through the Florida Court Clerks portal), and Texas (through individual county district clerk sites) provide extensive online searchability of case dockets and documents. In these states, case records are accessible by name search through official portals with no access barriers beyond internet connectivity.
• Partial online access states: Many states provide online access to case dockets (the list of filings and events in a case) but not to the actual documents themselves. In these states, you can find that a case exists and see its procedural history, but you must visit the courthouse to access the actual filed documents.
• Limited online access states: Some states and many individual counties still rely primarily on in-person access for court records. Online access may be limited to recently filed cases or to specific case types.

This variation matters because third-party aggregators have filled the gaps. Even in states with limited official online access, aggregator sites have sent research teams to courthouses, purchased bulk data from clerk's offices, and systematically indexed state court records. The result is that state court records are often more searchable through third-party sites than through official state portals.

What Is Actually Public: A Category-by-Category Guide

Civil Court Records

The vast majority of civil court records are public. This includes commercial litigation, personal injury cases, employment disputes, contract claims, real estate litigation, family law proceedings (with some exceptions), and civil rights cases. The complaint that initiates the case, all motions filed by either party, court orders, and final judgments are typically public documents accessible through official portals and indexed by aggregator sites.

Criminal Court Records

Criminal court records are generally public, including arrest records, charging documents (indictments, informations), court dockets, plea agreements, trial transcripts (for cases that went to trial), and sentencing records. However, significant restrictions apply in many jurisdictions: juvenile criminal records are sealed in most states, expunged records are removed from official access, and certain pre-trial diversion records may be restricted under state law. Arrest records without subsequent convictions are increasingly restricted in "ban the box" jurisdictions.

Bankruptcy Records

Federal bankruptcy records are generally public through PACER. Chapter 7, Chapter 11, and Chapter 13 filings are accessible, including schedules of assets and liabilities that may contain detailed financial information. Bankruptcy records remain in PACER indefinitely and are extensively indexed by aggregator sites. The credit bureau reporting limitation (seven to ten years from filing) does not affect the public accessibility of the court record itself.

Family Court Records

Family court records present the most variation by jurisdiction. Divorce proceedings are public in most states. Custody and visitation disputes may be public or sealed depending on state law and the nature of the proceedings. Domestic violence protective order proceedings are often partially sealed. Adoption proceedings are almost universally sealed. Paternity actions vary significantly by state.

What Is Sealed or Restricted: The Exceptions That Matter

Despite the public access presumption, substantial categories of court records are sealed or restricted as a matter of law or judicial practice:

• Juvenile delinquency records: In virtually every state, records of juvenile court proceedings are sealed or restricted. Adults who were subject to juvenile court jurisdiction have strong legal protections against public disclosure of those records.
• Expunged records: Records that have been expunged under state law are removed from official public access. Expungement seals the record from the official court system - though, critically, it does not automatically remove copies from third-party aggregator sites.
• Sealed by judicial order: Courts can seal specific documents or entire cases upon a finding that the privacy interest or other compelling interest outweighs the public access presumption. Sealed documents are not accessible through official portals.
• Mental health proceedings: Involuntary civil commitment proceedings and related mental health court records are sealed in most states.
• Immigration proceedings: Immigration court records are generally not public in the same way that Article III court records are, and access is more restricted.
• Grand jury proceedings: Grand jury materials - the proceedings themselves, witness testimony, and deliberations - are sealed in the federal system and in most states.

The Third-Party Amplification Effect

The single most important development in court record accessibility over the past fifteen years is the emergence of third-party legal aggregator sites that have transformed theoretically public records into practically searchable information. Sites like Justia, FindLaw, CourtListener, UniCourt, CaseText, and dozens of smaller platforms have built comprehensive, searchable databases of court records that are freely accessible without registration, without fees, and without any friction beyond a Google search.

These sites did not create new rights of access to court records - the records were always technically public. What they did was eliminate the practical barriers that previously made public access meaningful in name but cumbersome in practice. The result is a world in which anyone who wants to research a person's court history can do so in under sixty seconds from their smartphone.

This is the environment in which reputation management for court records must operate. The legal question of whether records are public is largely settled - most are. The practical question is what can be done about the accessibility that third-party sites have created - and the answer is more nuanced, requiring case-by-case assessment of which records may be candidates for removal from which platforms.