UniCourt Privacy Lawsuit Alleges AI Legal Co. Misused Court Data for Ads

A new Milberg lawsuit filed in California federal court accuses legal tech company UniCourt Research, Inc. of misusing personal data from public court records to generate targeted advertising without individuals’ consent.

What to Know:

• UniCourt is a legal tech company offering subscription-based access to litigation data and AI-powered legal tools.
• It allegedly uses the names of individuals involved in lawsuits, without their consent, as bait in search engine-optimized pages.
• When users search these names (e.g., on Google), UniCourt’s preview pages appear high in search results, directing traffic to its site.
• These pages summarize minimal lawsuit details and require a paid subscription to access full records or documents.
• Plaintiffs claim this amounts to unauthorized commercial use of personal identity for advertising purposes.
• California and Washington residents who meet certain criteria may be able to join the lawsuit as class members.

UniCourt is not, as a practical matter, selling access to the details of the advertised lawsuit that brought the user to UniCourt’s website in the first place.

About UniCourt

UniCourt is a legal technology company that aggregates public court records from state and federal courts across the U.S. Its platform provides access to case filings, party names, attorneys, docket updates, and legal analytics.

The California company markets its services to law firms, corporate legal departments, and the public, positioning itself as a resource for litigation data and insights and claiming to make the legal system more transparent and efficient by organizing legal information.

UniCourt’s Alleged Illegal Advertising

According to Milberg’s class action complaint, UniCourt is monetizing legal information on its platform in ways that may violate California and Washington law.

The complaint alleges that UniCourt uses personal details from court records, including litigants’ names, to generate targeted advertising. However, plaintiffs say they never gave UniCourt consent to use their identities for the company’s purposes—and certainly not for commercial advertising.

UniCourt is accused of misappropriating individuals’ names and likenesses for profit, a potential violation of California’s right of publicity laws and the Washington Personality Rights Act.

I never gave permission to have my name all over the internet.

Here’s how UniCourt’s alleged advertising model works:

• UniCourt’s platform promotes law firms and services alongside search results that display individuals’ names in connection with court cases.
• When a search for a person’s name is entered into a search engine like Google or Bing, if their name is linked to one or more of the “250 million+” lawsuits in UniCourt’s database, a link to UniCourt’s website summarizing information from their database about that lawsuit appears in search results.
• Clicking on the UniCourt preview page yields only limited details and does not provide full information about the specific lawsuit. Instead, UniCourt promotes and sells its suite of AI-powered tools at monthly subscription rates ranging from $129.99 to $199.

In other words, UniCourt does not sell information about the individuals searched—it sells subscriptions to its paid AI tools.

“UniCourt’s use of individuals’ identities to draw users to its website via search results is intended to sell access to a paid service that would grant the purchaser access to detailed information on the millions of cases in its database and the litigation tools connected to that database,” the complaint states. “In so doing, UniCourt misappropriates those identities for its own commercial benefit to promote paid subscriptions to its products and services.”

Plaintiffs’ Experiences Echo Online Complaints

The UniCourt privacy lawsuit was brought by California and Washington residents who say UniCourt misused their names in connection with court records to run ads.

Plaintiffs claim that UniCourt is exploiting their names as keywords in a digital advertising scheme designed to funnel legal traffic—and revenue—to the site while never seeking consent from individuals named in the records. And they’re not alone. Complaints have cropped up across the web detailing experiences similar to those of the plaintiffs.

• Plaintiff Megan Trama discovered that UniCourt was using her name and details from a prior lawsuit to promote its paid subscription service. When she searched her name online, a UniCourt link appeared prominently in the results—leading to a profile that included specifics about her case, including the parties involved and the nature of the dispute. Trama never consented to this use of her identity, has no relationship with UniCourt, and was never a customer.
• Plaintiff Jesika Brodiski learned that UniCourt was using her name and case information to market its subscription-based service. A Bing search of her name produced a UniCourt result linking to a page that disclosed details about her past legal matter, including the case’s location, date, and parties involved. Like Trama, Brodiski had no relationship with UniCourt, had never authorized the use of her identity for any purpose, and had never consented to being featured in advertising.

Plaintiffs’ experiences with UniCourt search results are corroborated by non-litigants on sites like the BBB and Reddit.

Some of these results suggest a person has been sued or is involved in criminal litigation, even when the underlying matter is routine, outdated, or ultimately dismissed, potentially exposing them to reputational harm. Users have also reported that once their name is linked to a case on UniCourt’s site, correcting or removing that information is difficult, if not impossible.

For example:

• “I requested that my divorce documents be removed from their website since it can negatively impact me, but they didn’t approve and asked for a court order.”
• “I want my personal court information removed from [UniCourt] and other search engines. This is a privacy concern and these records can be found through the court system. This needs to be removed right away!!! I never gave permission to have my name all over the internet.”
• “Googled my name and my case comes up on UniCourt … I tried to get it removed but they only gave me a 6 month redaction. I’m embarrassed … Is there any way around this?”

These allegations suggest, like the plaintiffs’ claims, a pattern of unauthorized use of personal information, potential privacy violations, and deceptive commercial practices by UniCourt.

UniCourt Privacy Lawsuit Legal Claims and Potential Class Members

The lawsuit cites violations of the California Right of Publicity Statute, California’s common law right of publicity, California’s common law prohibition against unjust enrichment, and the Washington Personality Rights Act. It seeks monetary damages and injunctive relief on behalf of the following proposed class members:

• California Class: All California residents whose identity was the subject of a lawsuit preview page published by UniCourt and viewed for the first time during the Class Period.
• Washington Class: All Washington residents whose identity was the subject of a lawsuit preview page published by UniCourt and viewed for the first time during the Class Period.

The plaintiffs and class members are represented by Milberg’s William J. Edelman and Alexander Wolf.

As one of the top privacy firms in the country, Milberg is on the leading edge of filing lawsuits against technology companies like UniCourt that misuse personal information for profit, holding them accountable for violating privacy rights, exploiting digital identities, and skirting consumer protection laws.

Over a recent three-year period, Milberg settled on a class-wide basis more than fifty class actions involving privacy violations in state and federal courts across the country as lead or co-lead counsel. No other plaintiffs’ class action firm in the country settled and won court approval of more data breach and data privacy class actions during this period.