If You Have a Hearing, It Is Open to the Public for the Most Part
Video Transcribed: Are Oklahoma family law cases public record? I’m Tulsa attorney, James Wirth, and I’m answering frequently asked questions. And that’s the question I’ve got here is are Oklahoma family law cases, Oklahoma divorce, Oklahoma guardianships, Oklahoma protective orders, Oklahoma custody, Oklahoma paternity, all of those things, are they public record? And the answer is for the most part, yes. Adoptions sealed, not public. Guardianship, sealed, not public. Deprived child action, sealed, not public.
Pretty much everything else is. You file a protective order, those documents are going to be available to the public should they decide to pull them, all that dirty laundry may be aired. Same thing with divorce filings, custody battles. If you’re going for visitation, child support, asset division in a divorce, all of those things, those actions are public.
If you have a hearing, it is open to the public for the most part. And the pleadings are open to the public as well. So you want to be conscious of that. And unlike criminal cases where there’s a specific statute regarding how to get these sealed and expunged, in civil cases, it’s not that simple.
For the most part, the court is not going to seal a civil case. Some particular filings in there you can request seal on if it’s got sensitive information, social security numbers, dates of birth, or other information from a DHS records.
The court may seal those specific records, but the court filing or the case as a whole, unlikely to be sealed. It’s likely to be available to the public, docket sheet available on oscn.net. So if you’ve got questions like that or other questions about your specific circumstances, then this video is probably not going to cut it. You’re probably going to want to talk to an Oklahoma attorney about those specifics. To talk to me or somebody at my office, go to makelaweasy.com.
