# OCR for Sealed Records: What to Settle Before Upload

- Author: Schema Law (https://www.schemalaw.com/)
- Published: 2026-03-06T15:11:44Z
- Updated: 2026-10-11T19:22:20Z
- Category: Confidentiality
- Canonical: https://www.schemalaw.com/blog/ocr-for-sealed-records

> Before you run OCR on sealed records, settle who may hold a copy, where the converted text will live and when it is deleted. A checklist for the file.

You can use OCR for sealed records only after you settle three things: whether the order or statute behind the seal lets anyone outside your office hold a copy, where the converted text will be kept, and when every copy is deleted. A sealing order may say nothing about vendors, and that silence is not permission.

This post is about handling the file. It is not legal advice, and sealing practice differs from court to court, so the order in front of you controls.

## What counts as a sealed record in a law office?

A sealed record is a court record that an order has closed to the public. In a law office the label also gets used for files closed by statute and for discovery stamped confidential. Those three are different things with different rules, and the first job is to work out which one you are holding.

California's court rules give a clean definition. Under [rule 2.550 of the California Rules of Court](https://courts.ca.gov/cms/rules/index/two/rule2_550), a sealed record "is a record that by court order is not open to inspection by the public." The same rule says it does "not apply to records that are required to be kept confidential by law." So even inside one state's rules, sealed by order and confidential by law are separate categories.

The federal civil rules treat sealing as something a court orders filing by filing. [Rule 5.2(d) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure](https://www.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/2025-02/federal-rules-of-civil-procedure-dec-1-2024_0.pdf) says the court "may order that a filing be made under seal without redaction" and "may later unseal the filing".

| What the file is | Where the restriction comes from | What to read before conversion |
| --- | --- | --- |
| A filing or exhibit sealed in a case | A sealing order in that case | The order, and any local rule on sealed filings |
| A record kept confidential by law (the comment to the California rule gives family conciliation court records as one example) | A statute or court rule | The statute, and the terms on which your office received the file |
| Discovery marked confidential | A protective order or agreement | The order's list of who may see the material |

The third row is not a sealed record at all. The Northern District of California makes the point in [Civil Local Rule 79-5](https://cand.uscourts.gov/rules-forms-fees/local-rules/civil-local-rules): a reference to a protective order that lets a party designate documents as confidential "is not sufficient to establish that a document, or portions thereof, are sealable." Designated discovery has its own access rules, and the post on [OCR for documents under a protective order](https://www.schemalaw.com/blog/ocr-documents-under-a-protective-order) covers the vendor clauses in those orders.

## Does a sealing order let you upload the record to an OCR service?

A sealing order closes a record to the public. It may say nothing about the tools counsel may use, and then it neither permits nor forbids an upload in so many words. That leaves the decision to the wording of the order, any statute behind it, and your own confidentiality duties. Read all three before the file leaves your office.

Look for these in the order and in whatever came with the file:

- **A list of people who may see the record.** An order may name counsel of record, the parties and court staff. An OCR provider is not on a list like that unless the order adds service providers.
- **Limits on copying.** An order or a clerk's cover letter may bar copies, or require that copies be counted and returned. A conversion makes copies.
- **Terms attached to your access.** A record released to you for one purpose, such as an appeal, may carry conditions that a general sealing order does not.
- **A statute with its own penalties.** Records closed by law can be governed by rules stricter than anything in a case order.

If the order is silent, your professional duties still apply to the upload. They require reasonable efforts to keep client information from unauthorized access, and a sealed record sits at the sensitive end of that scale. The post on privilege and AI tools sets out [what the confidentiality rules require of a lawyer](https://www.schemalaw.com/blog/attorney-client-privilege-and-ai-tools#what-do-the-confidentiality-rules-require-of-a-lawyer).

When the order leaves real doubt, the cautious routes are to convert the record on equipment your office controls, or to ask the court or the other parties to confirm in writing that a service provider bound to confidentiality may handle it. Which route fits is a judgment for the responsible lawyer.

## A handling checklist for sealed records before conversion

Work through a short checklist before any sealed record is converted, and write the answers down. The point is to make the decision once, on the record, instead of leaving it to whoever happens to be scanning that afternoon.

1. **Identify the source of the seal.** Write the order's date and docket number, or the statute, on the matter's handling note.
2. **Read the access and copying terms.** Note who may see the record and whether copies are limited.
3. **Decide whether conversion is needed.** If you only have to read forty pages once, searchable text may not be worth a new copy.
4. **Get the responsible lawyer's sign-off.** A paralegal should not make this call alone.
5. **Choose the tool on its written terms.** Check what the provider says about access, reuse and deletion. Schema Law's stated commitments are on the homepage under [security](https://www.schemalaw.com/#security), and they are the company's own statements to be tested like any vendor's.
6. **Upload only the pages you need.** A sealed exhibit inside a 600-page appendix does not require the whole appendix.
7. **Name files so the status is obvious.** Put SEALED at the front of the file name of the scan and of every export.
8. **Log it.** Record the date, the person, the tool, the page range and the export formats created.

A worked example: a paralegal at a fictional firm, Okafor Reyes LLP, receives a sealed 85-page psychological evaluation in a custody appeal. The sealing order limits access to "counsel of record and their staff". The supervising lawyer reads that as leaving out outside providers and has the evaluation converted on an office workstation instead. The handling note records the reasoning in two lines. Six months later, nobody has to guess why that record was treated differently.

Sealed records like that evaluation stay sensitive after the text exists. Client confidentiality covers the converted copy, and the duty of competence includes matching the tool to the people the order names. Keep the two-line note with the upload log so a later question has an answer in the file. If the order is later lifted, check it again before you move the exports into the open folder.

## Keeping converted sealed text apart from the open file

Converted sealed text belongs in its own restricted folder, never in the general matter folder. A Word or plain text export is far easier to copy, paste and attach than a scan. One pasted paragraph in a public brief undoes the seal, so the separation has to hold at the point where people draft.

Practical separation looks like this:

- **A restricted folder for the sealed set**, holding the scan and every export, with access limited to the people working on it.
- **No sealed text in shared search.** If your document system indexes the matter folder for everyone on the team, keep sealed exports outside the indexed area.
- **A marking at the top of each export.** The page image carries the court's stamp, but a text export loses it. Type "SEALED: do not file or quote without leave" as the first line.
- **A clean downloads folder.** The browser saves each export to a local folder first. Move it and delete the local copy the same day.
- **Care with quotations.** Before a draft that quotes a sealed record goes anywhere, decide whether the quoting document must itself be filed under seal.

Filing has its own mechanics. A searchable copy for the court still has to go through that court's sealed-filing procedure, and the post on [searchable PDFs for court filing](https://www.schemalaw.com/blog/searchable-pdf-for-court-filing) covers what courts ask of the PDF itself.

## When should a sealed record and its converted text be deleted?

Delete the uploaded sealed record from the OCR service as soon as you have downloaded and checked the exports. Delete the converted text in your own files when the order, the statute or your file-closing policy says the record must go. The copy at the provider has no reason to outlive the conversion.

Three clocks can apply, and the shortest one wins:

- **The order's own terms.** An order may require return or destruction of sealed material at the end of the case.
- **The terms on which you received the file.** A record lent to you by a court or agency may have to go back.
- **Your firm's retention policy** for closed matters.

Unsealing changes the public's access to the court file. It does not by itself tell you what to do with your copies, so check the order that unseals.

On the provider side, look at what deletion covers. Schema Law's homepage says: "Delete any document whenever you choose. The original file and everything parsed from it are removed." Nothing is deleted automatically on any plan, and a document stays until you remove it, so delete by hand when the export is done. Note the deletion date in the same log that recorded the upload.

## Try it on a real document

Upload a scanned PDF and export it as Word, a searchable PDF or plain text on the free plan. Your documents are never used to train an AI model. [Start free](https://www.schemalaw.com/api/auth/google)