Justia is a free legal-information site. Its privacy policy says it provides access to some public litigation records from federal and state courts as a public service, and its Dockets & Filings section publishes case dockets and court filings. Its help page on why your information is online says that if private information appears in evidence, pleadings or other documents in the public court record, it becomes available once the court's electronic records are public. So if you were a party to a case, a Justia page about it can come up when someone searches your name.
There is no opt-out form that deletes a case. Justia's privacy policy says that, unless compelled by a valid court order, it will not fully remove court records that are not under seal. What it offers instead is a written request to keep a page out of search engines. If you want to remove your case from Justia itself, the route runs through the court.
Checked against Justia's privacy policy (last reviewed December 2025) and its support request form on October 25, 2026. Justia's "Why Is My Information Online?" page showed us a security check that day, so for that page we read the Internet Archive's copy from November 1, 2025. We also read CourtListener's content removal policy (last modified July 23, 2026), CourtListener's contact page and Google's help page on refreshing outdated content. We read the pages; we did not fill in or submit anything.
What Justia will and won't do
- It won't fully remove an unsealed record without a court order. The privacy policy says so directly. The help page adds that it will not fully remove items without an applicable court order marking the records under seal or designating them for removal from the public record.
- A privacy-law deletion request doesn't reach court records. The privacy policy says court records are not considered personal information under the California, Virginia, Colorado and Connecticut privacy laws, so they are exempt from the right to know and the right to request deletion.
- It will consider a request to keep a page out of search engines. The privacy policy says Justia will consider written requests to stop search engines processing certain case filings and opinions, using the robots.txt protocol. It says that, after this, the Justia page should not show up when someone searches for your docket or opinion on a search engine such as Google.
- It covers Justia's own pages only. The privacy policy says Justia has no control over the same documents on other sources, such as court websites and third-party services.
- It doesn't control search engine timing. The help page says that once the robots.txt block is applied, Justia has no control over how long it takes for the link to leave the search engines.
Step 1: ask the court about sealing or expungement
Justia's help page says that if you want your information deleted from the Justia site, you should contact the court directly, or hire an attorney, to petition the court to seal it. A court order that seals the record, or removes it from the public record, is the one thing Justia says it acts on.
Whether a case can be sealed or expunged depends on the court and the kind of case, so ask the court clerk or a lawyer what applies to yours. If you get an order, keep a copy: you will want it for Justia and for CourtListener below.
Justia's pages don't say where to send a sealing order. The support form in Step 2 is the contact route its privacy policy links to, so you can use it: describe the order (court, case number, date) and list the URL of every Justia page about the case. The form we read has no file upload, so ask in your message how to send a copy of the order.
Step 2: ask Justia to keep the page out of search engines
- Copy the URL of every Justia page that shows the case, such as the docket page and any filing or opinion pages.
- Open support.justia.com.
- Tick Submitting a request to block a Justia link, such as a court docket, judicial opinion, trademark, or patent, from search engines.
- The form then asks for the Justia.com URL or links you want blocked from the search engines. Paste every URL from step 1.
- Fill in the required comments box: say the pages are about a case you were a party to and that you are asking for them to be blocked from search engines.
- Enter your name and email address, complete the form's robot check and send the request.
This is the written request the privacy policy says Justia will consider. It asks search engines to drop the page; it does not take the page off Justia, and it does nothing to copies on court websites or other sites.
CourtListener: the same case, a similar policy
Court records are often published on more than one free site. CourtListener, run by the non-profit Free Law Project, has a content removal policy close to Justia's:
- No removal without a court order. It says it will not remove any public document from its database without one, and that your only recourse is to get the information deleted from the public record and obtain a court order requiring CourtListener to do the same.
- With an order, names can become initials. If the order demands an expungement or redaction, it says it will generally replace names with initials or black boxes and put a note at the top of the document. It won't change other documents unless an order specifically requires it.
- Without an order, it will generally block search engines. On request, it says it will generally block search engines from indexing the pages, using the robots meta tag and/or the x-robots-tag HTTP header.
- No guarantees. It says it may update the policy, makes no guarantee that blocked records stay blocked, and that removals not based on a court order are at its sole discretion.
To ask:
- Open courtlistener.com/contact/?issue_type=removal and choose Case Removal Request.
- Fill in your name, email, a subject and a message. The policy says you must include links to the pages you want removed.
- If you have a court order, say so in the message.
The contact page asks people not to use AI to write the message, so write it yourself.
Search engines
Both sites say search engines are outside their control. CourtListener's policy says search engines may not remove your case from their results for many months, if at all.
Once a page has actually changed, for example after Justia applies a sealing order or CourtListener replaces your name with initials, Google may still show the old version for a while. Google's Refresh outdated content tool is for that: its help page describes it for content that was deleted from a site but still comes up in Google Search results. You enter the URL of the page and submit. It is the last step, not the first. For the wider picture, see how to remove your home address from Google search results.
How long does it take?
Neither Justia's privacy policy nor its help page gives a timeframe for a search-engine block, and both sites say the search engines decide how long removal from results takes. Sealing and expungement take as long as the court's process does.
If it doesn't work
- Look for other copies. Justia's help page notes that many courts publish their own opinions online and that many other organizations publish them too. Check each site you find; UniCourt, for example, has its own redaction request (see below).
- Other personal information. For personal information Justia holds that isn't a court record, such as account details, the privacy policy lists requests to know, correct, limit or delete through the support form or by phone on (888) 587-8421. It says Justia may verify your identity, in some cases with a government-issued ID, and that an authorized agent may need your written permission.
- Ask a question. The privacy policy gives justiaprivacypolicy@justia.com for comments and questions.
Justia isn't one of the sites in Defynta's free scan, and Defynta doesn't file requests with it: this one is do-it-yourself. The scan looks you up on the people-search sites we track and gives you a direct link to check each one.
Who runs Justia. The privacy policy we read calls the company Justia and doesn't give a legal entity name or a postal address. We did not find Justia or Free Law Project on California's data broker registry (searched October 25, 2026), so the state's DROP tool, which sends requests to registered brokers, is not a route here.
Related pages
- UniCourt, another court-records site, with a redaction request for parties to a case
- Mugshots.com, arrest photos, removed only with court papers for set cases
- How to remove your home address from Google search results
- Where data brokers get your information
Full list: the master opt-out guide.
Frequently asked questions
Can I remove my case from Justia completely?
Only with a court order. Justia's privacy policy says it will not fully remove court records that are not under seal unless compelled by a valid court order. Without one, the most it offers is keeping the page out of search engines.
Does a CCPA deletion request work on Justia dockets?
Not for the court record. Justia's privacy policy says court records are not personal information under the CCPA and similar state laws, so the deletion right doesn't apply to them.
Will the case disappear from Google?
Justia says that after a robots.txt block, its page should not show up when someone searches for your docket or opinion. It also says it has no control over how long search engines take, and copies on other sites are not covered.
Is my case on other sites too?
It can be. Justia says the same documents can be on court websites and third-party services, and CourtListener publishes court records under its own removal policy.
Does a Justia request cost anything?
None of the pages we read mention a fee for a search-engine block request.
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