Thousands of confidential ethics and juvenile records are published online

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Privacy Law Thousands of confidential ethics and juvenile records are published online

By Debra Cassens Weiss

March 2, 2022, 11:21 am CST

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A website called judyrecords.com has published thousands of confidential court records from across the nation, including private ethics records in California and juvenile court records from several states, according to reporting by Law360.

The State Bar of California said judyrecords.com apparently obtained nonpublic information on about 260,000 attorney ethics cases as a result of a “previously unknown security vulnerability” in its case management portal. The bar uses Tyler Technologies’ Odyssey system, which was also used by affected court systems that spoke with Law360 about the problem.

Judyrecords.com describes itself as “a 100% free nationwide search engine that lets you instantly search hundreds of millions of United States court cases and lawsuits.”

Law360 said it searched judyrecords.com “and uncovered dockets with detailed information about minors that, in some affected jurisdictions, is normally restricted or confidential. The information included the names of defendants. In several cases, it also listed their birth dates, criminal charges and sentencing information.”

Attorney discipline cases in California are confidential before formal charges are filed, according to the state bar. Judyrecords.com published “nonpublic case profile data,” the state bar said, including case number, file date, case type, case status and the names of the complaining witness and the lawyer under investigation.

The California bar said judyrecords.com obtained its private records using “a unique access method.” The bar said it was working with Tyler Technologies to fix the security vulnerability, which could impact other users of Odyssey systems.

Odyssey is used by courts in 28 states, although it was unclear how many had private court records posted on judyrecords,com, according to Law360. The website disabled its search function after Law360 published its findings March 1, saying it was doing so “while any possible case access issues are resolved.”

The California bar records were removed from the website by Feb. 26.

A Tyler Technologies representative told Law360 that it is investigating the issue.

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