This past week, the Judicial Conference of the United States adopted a policy which seeks to limit the civil cases which federal courts put under seal. The Conference is composed of Senior Circuit Judges and was created by Congress in 1922 to serve as the top policy-maker for the administration of the federal courts.
According to the new policy, "an entire civil case file should only be sealed when . . . sealing . . . is required by statute or rule or justified by a showing of extraordinary circumstances and the absence of narrower feasible and effective alternatives such as sealing discrete documents or redacting information, so that sealing an entire case file is a last resort." An order which seals a civil case in its entirety should include findings which justify the seal, and any seal should be lifted upon a determination that the initial reason is no longer operative.
