Definition
Sealing refers to several distinct legal procedures unified by a common purpose: restricting access to, preserving, or authenticating something through official closure. Context determines which meaning applies.
1. Record sealing (criminal and civil). The court-ordered restriction of access to judicial records — most commonly criminal records, arrest records, and juvenile records — so that they are no longer available through ordinary public searches. A sealed record continues to exist but is hidden from general view, including most background check inquiries. This is distinguished from expungement, which typically involves destruction or deletion of the record itself.
2. Sealing in succession (civil law). The affixing of official seals by a competent officer to the property and effects of a decedent's estate, done by judicial order, to preserve assets pending administration and to protect the interests of creditors, heirs, and other third parties. Historically associated with Louisiana's civil law tradition, derived from French practice.
3. Sealing of documents in litigation. A court's directive restricting public access to case filings, exhibits, or portions thereof — typically to protect trade secrets, sensitive personal information, or privileged material. A sealed document remains in the court's custody but is withheld from the public docket.
4. Sealing in contract law (historical). The affixing of a wax seal to a written instrument to authenticate it and give it legal effect as a deed or specialty contract. Though largely abolished by statute, the concept survives in the use of the word "seal" or the letters "L.S." (locus sigilli) on formal instruments.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Used for closing securely.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): To set or affix a seal to; to fasten with a seal; to stamp with a seal as authenticating or confirming.
The ordinary sense of sealing — physically closing or securing something — captures only part of the legal picture. In law, sealing is as much about restricting access and creating legal authenticity as it is about physical closure. A sealed court record is not physically enclosed in anything; it is administratively restricted. A sealed instrument in contract law derived meaning not from closure but from the formality of authentication. Researchers should not let the common meaning suggest that sealing is a physical rather than a legal act.
Common Confusion
Sealing vs. expungement. These terms are frequently used interchangeably in ordinary speech and sometimes in statutes, but they are not the same. Sealing hides a record from public view while the record itself survives. Expungement (or expunction) typically involves the physical or legal destruction of the record, as if it never existed. The practical consequences differ significantly: some agencies, including federal authorities and licensing boards, retain access to sealed records but not expunged ones. Jurisdiction-specific statutes define what each remedy actually accomplishes in that state, and researchers cannot assume standard definitions apply uniformly.
Sealing vs. confidentiality orders. A sealing order restricts access to the record itself. A confidentiality or protective order governs what the parties may disclose outside the proceeding. The two often operate together but are legally distinct mechanisms.
Recognized Forms
/SUBTYPES
1. Criminal record sealing. Applies to arrest records, charge records, and conviction records. Eligibility criteria — offense type, waiting period, rehabilitation requirements — vary widely by jurisdiction.
2. Juvenile record sealing. A historically distinct category in most jurisdictions, reflecting the policy that juvenile adjudications should not follow individuals into adulthood. Automatic sealing at a certain age is common in some states; petitioned sealing is required in others.
3. Succession sealing (civil law). The affixing of judicial seals to estate assets pending administration. Primarily a Louisiana doctrine rooted in the French Civil Code tradition.
4. Document sealing in litigation. Court orders restricting public docket access to specific filings or exhibits, governed by First Amendment public access doctrine and local court rules.
5. Sealing under seal (contract law). The historical formality of executing an instrument under seal to distinguish deeds and specialties from simple contracts, affecting enforceability, the applicable statute of limitations, and whether consideration was required.
Why It Matters in Research
The word "sealing" appears across criminal law, civil procedure, succession law, and contract law without always signaling which doctrine is in play. Researchers must identify context before assuming which definition governs.
For criminal records research, the critical distinction is between jurisdictions that treat sealing as near-equivalent to expungement and those that maintain a sharp distinction. Statutes enacted before the 1970s often use neither term at all, predating the modern record-clearing movement. Post-2010 legislation in many states dramatically expanded sealing eligibility — "clean slate" statutes in some jurisdictions now provide for automatic administrative sealing without a petition. Any research that does not account for the date of the governing statute risks significant misstatement of the law.
For juvenile records, the confidentiality framework is even more layered. Federal law (particularly the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act) sets floors, but state practice varies from near-automatic sealing to petition-based systems with hearings. Historical sources predate many of these protections entirely and will not reflect the current confidentiality presumption.
For litigation document sealing, researchers should be aware that federal courts apply a First Amendment and common law right-of-access framework that makes permanent broad sealing difficult to sustain. Stipulated sealing orders between parties are not self-executing — courts retain discretion to unseal.
For contract law research, the seal's legal significance has been nearly eliminated in most common law jurisdictions by statute. Researchers encountering historical deed or specialty contract disputes must understand the older doctrine because the consequences — especially regarding consideration and limitations periods — differ sharply from modern simple contract rules.
The Louisiana succession meaning will appear almost exclusively in Louisiana sources and civil law treatises. Researchers using the historical dictionaries should note that both Black's editions lead with this civil law definition, which reflects the Louisiana-influenced legal publishing environment of that era rather than the dominant modern usage.
Historical Dictionary Support
Both editions of Black's Law Dictionary define sealing primarily through the civil law succession context, quoting Louisiana Civil Code article 1075 virtually verbatim: the placing of seals on the effects of a succession by the proper officer, by judicial order, to preserve assets and protect third parties. The two editions are essentially identical on this point, reflecting the Louisiana civil law tradition rather than the broader common law usage the term now principally carries.
What the historical dictionaries miss almost entirely is the modern record-sealing doctrine — the criminal and juvenile record restriction function that now dominates the term's usage in American courts. This is not surprising given the era of the editions, but it creates a significant gap for researchers who consult historical sources expecting guidance on court record access. Neither edition addresses sealing of litigation documents or the contemporary clean-slate record-clearing framework.
The contract law dimension — sealing as authentication of a deed or specialty — is also largely absent from these entries, though it is addressed in related dictionary entries on "seal" and "sealed instrument." The structural separation in the historical dictionaries between "sealing" (succession) and "seal" (instrument formality) is itself a research trap: a researcher looking up one may not think to consult the other.
Jurisdictional Note
Record sealing law is entirely jurisdiction-specific. Eligibility, procedure, effect, and which agencies retain access vary state by state and, for federal records, under separate federal law. Louisiana's civil law succession sealing procedure has no common law counterpart. The formality of the seal in contract law has been abolished or substantially modified by statute in virtually all U.S. jurisdictions, though the timing and scope of those statutes differ.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
The Law Mind Criminal Law Encyclopedia: Expungement, Sealing, and Record Clearing
The Law Mind Criminal Law Encyclopedia: Juvenile Records — Confidentiality and Sealing
The Law Mind Contracts & Commercial Law Encyclopedia: Contracts Under Seal and Statutory Substitutes