- Posted September 15, 2011
- Tweet This | Share on Facebook
Judges claim too many civil cases kept secret
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Federal judges who set the rules for U.S. courts say too many civil lawsuits are being kept from public view and are urging their colleagues to seal cases only in extraordinary circumstances.
Chief Judge David Sentelle of the federal appeals court in Washington said the Judicial Conference voted unanimously Tuesday to adopt a policy aimed at limiting the number of sealed civil cases. Sentelle said judges "should not do something in secret" without compelling reasons.
A study of civil cases filed in 2006 found that 576 out of 245,326 cases were sealed.
Sentelle said the 26 judges who form the policy-making Judicial Conference believe too many cases are being sealed in their entirety. Judges should instead try to shield individual documents or black out information in a file.
Published: Thu, Sep 15, 2011
headlines Oakland County
headlines National
- New Legalese: You may have heard a deepfake, but what about ‘Twiqbal’?
- From Intake to Outcome: An in-house lawyer’s guide to matter management solutions
- 2 BigLaw firms in merger talks that could produce 1,600-lawyer firm with top 50 revenue
- Send in the paralegals
- Lawyer reprimanded after mistakenly emailing opposing counsel with plan to avoid judge’s call
- ‘I don’t play well’ judge who threatened to track down, jail misbehaving litigant gets tossed from case