Privacy, Not Secrecy: How Maryland’s New Law Shields Divorce Filings from Public View

David Bulitt: [00:00:00] Welcome to JGL Law for You. JGL Law for You is a podcast by lawyers, but not for lawyers only. On JGL Law for You, we will be discussing a wide array of topics to help you navigate the many legal processes,

Chris Castellano: developments in the law, other current events, and how they may affect you, your family, or your business.

David Bulitt: We’re back in the family law environment speaking with my law partner, Joseph, Greenwald & Laake, family law specialist, Chris Castellano. Welcome back again, Chris. Good to have you.

Chris Castellano: Thanks for having me, David.

David Bulitt: All right. So today let’s dive right in. We’re talking about confidentiality. What’s secret? What is kept confidential from the public in divorce cases? Can anybody read what happens during the course of your divorce? I mean, most people, right, Chris, assume that personal and financial details of their divorce are private, but that’s not always been correct, has it?

Chris Castellano: Well, that’s right. I mean, so right now, and I’m going to use that very specifically because we are [00:01:00] recording this podcast still in September, right? And so as of October 1, there’s some new privacy changes that we’re going to see with divorce filings. However, so let’s talk about the world pre-October 1, and then we’ll talk about post-October 1. And so you’re absolutely right. There’s a perception that when you file in Maryland, file a divorce case, that, oh, that’s a private situation. It’s a family matter. And Dick and Jane can’t go to the courthouse and get that information. Well, in fact, that part’s not true. Anyone can go to the courthouse and say, I want to look up X, Y, and Z case number. Now, there’s caveats to that that have always been in place. Can you see child information? Can you see child support guidelines or full agreements?

The answer is no. That has always been part of, let’s call it the overall privacy of a divorce case. But when you’re talking about the complaint, answers to the complaint, [00:02:00] various different filings that occurred, all of those items have been veiled from the pub, have been open to the public and not veiled. And there’s a policy reason behind that, is that the general public is somewhat entitled to understand what the judiciary is doing, right? This is a foundation of the government and country type of discussion in that way, is that we, the people, so to say, should understand what’s happening with the judiciary. And so now let’s change our focus to what the Maryland General Assembly has changed. And what they decided was, okay, we’ve got a situation here with divorce filings. Should they remain open or should we start implementing some level of privacy?

And they decided during this last main session to go ahead and implement a level of privacy protection. And that means that unless you are one of the specifically [00:03:00] identified persons under the statute, then you don’t have access to a divorce filing, right? So that means your complaint for divorce agreements, et cetera, et cetera. The only thing that the statute allows to be open is that there is a judgment of absolute divorce decree. And you can see that. That’s about it.

David Bulitt: So let me just ask a question because, you know, there’s going to be some lawyers listening to this. And so let’s ask the lawyers question. There’s a search that pretty much anyone can access online, the Maryland Judiciary Case Search. And most states have something similar where you can plug in a party’s name and up will come, assuming you plug in the right information, up will come various docket entries. We call them things that have been filed in a case. Not the substance of what’s been filed, but the items themselves, i.e. a complaint or there’s a notice of hearing or so forth. Is that no longer available to anyone to look at?

Chris Castellano: My understanding of this new statute, which will go [00:04:00] into effect as the General Provisions section 4-101 and 4-305.1, right? Does not change how the Maryland Judiciary Case Search is operating, which is what you’re referring to. This is specific to a clerk of the court allowing access to a physical file.

David Bulitt: I see. Okay. So this is not what’s available online, which isn’t very much, but it’s access. If you want to go down to the courthouse and see what’s happening in Chris Castellano’s crazy divorce case, I can’t get to that file anymore.

Chris Castellano: Well, that’s right. And, you know, it’s interesting for us practitioners. We’re all too familiar with the Maryland Judiciary Case Search. We’re all too familiar with the Odyssey File and Serve, the MDEC. And then we’re similarly all too familiar with the Maryland Judiciary Record Search. Those three distinct online servers. And you can go on to the case search and see the general docket with [00:05:00] virtually no usable information, just that, hey, document A was filed on date B. We know that. So then your Odyssey eFile and Serve, well, that doesn’t do a whole lot because that just allows you to actually file a document. And users can see when it was filed, et cetera. But it’s the Maryland Judiciary Record Search that serves, once you sign in, serves the same purpose as the Maryland Judiciary Web Search. However, if you are a counsel of record, you can actually access all the pleadings as if you’re physically in the court.

So the question that I have with this new statute is that are we going to see a change in large to all of these online repositories? Because they’ve already implemented somewhat of a restriction of access when it comes to the Maryland Judiciary Record Search because you have to be a counsel of record. And so if that’s already implemented online well [00:06:00] before this statute’s coming into play, what other changes are we going to start to see?

David Bulitt: Okay. So, I mean, I think everybody understands why folks would assume that certain things are private in a divorce filing. Not everybody should know what I have. Not everybody should know the details of my divorce, what’s going on with my kids, whatever the case may be. But what subsequent to this law going into effect in a couple of days, what remains public? What can the public still see?

Chris Castellano: Yeah, the public can still see that a, I suppose that a case has occurred and there’s a case number associated to a plaintiff and a defendant, as well as they can get access to the actual judgment of absolute divorce. Can they get access to the agreement that’s been incorporated into the decree? No. No. But frankly, David, as you well know, you haven’t been able to get access to that agreement. So what this is really doing is, yeah, it doesn’t [00:07:00] change. So what we’re really looking at is just restricting access to all of the prior documents.

David Bulitt: Okay. And it’s outside, folks. If I’m a litigant in this particular case, I can still go and get a copy of my file and look and see what’s in there, right? Right.

Chris Castellano: That’s right. That’s right.

David Bulitt: And just to follow up on that, just so that folks are clear, in the old days, and I say the old days may have been before your time, but certainly during my time, whenever there were materials produced, there were bank statements, there were photographs or other things of evidence that were produced during the course of litigation, those things got put into the court file. But they have not been for some time, right?

Chris Castellano: Correct.

David Bulitt: And this law doesn’t change that at all. It doesn’t change. We no longer file what we lawyers call discovery responses themselves in a jacket for even for a party to go down to the courthouse. It has to have gotten them themselves or seen it through their lawyer, right?

Chris Castellano: Well, that’s right. I mean, it’s interesting. [00:08:00] In fact, in my personal experience, just last week, a pro se individual representing themselves tried to file discovery requests through MDEC, like the e-filing. But because they selected e-serve and file, the court, the clerk actually rejected that because it’s not supposed to go through that and it can’t be filed because we can’t have discovery requests in the jacket, just as you suggest. So, yeah, that’s not changing, right? Discovery requests are still not supposed to be filed. It’s there’s an interesting layer to this of what’s going to happen next, right? What’s the next step? Does that mean that we’ll start to see more stuff officially filed? I don’t know the answer to that part. So could we see a future where we actually are filing discovery requests? All right. That’s a good question.

David Bulitt: Yeah. And along those same lines, let’s talk about the difference between privacy and secrecy. There’s a big difference. I mean, a lot of people think of them as the same. Well, if it’s private, [00:09:00] it’s my secret, you know, whether it’s in my personal life or day-to-day life, whatever it is. But when we’re talking about this type of a circumstance, litigation, what folks can see and what they can’t see, there’s a difference, is there not, between what’s private and what’s secret?

Chris Castellano: Well, right. You know, when we talk about the secret, at least, and this is, I guess, and I suppose somewhat subjective, but it tends to insinuate a level of a desire to prevent someone from learning information. An individual filing something would expect like, oh, this is going to allow me to be more secretive and maybe I file this document and only the judge is going to see it. Well, no, that’s not true. Your spouse is going to see the information that’s filed in the case. What this statute is doing is preventing the public, people that are not associated with your case, from seeing this information. And so, you better believe that your other spouse is going to see anything that’s filed in this case. The other attorneys [00:10:00] that are associated with this case are going to see anything filed. And just like the judge would see it or any other experts or associated people that have an interest in this case will still have access to the documents.

David Bulitt: Is there any connection or conflict between, potential conflict, between this new statute and how it, you know, and how it interacts with Maryland’s rules, existing rules, that would continue to stay in place after October 1 pertaining to access to judicial records?

Chris Castellano: Yeah, I’m so glad you brought this up. The short answer is that this new statute, 5.1, as far as I’m concerned, does not address kind of those, the cross statutes that we would come to think of. I immediately go to the Maryland Rules 20-201 and 20-202, right? And these are the rules that are now implemented for e-filing where you need a notice of restricted information. All the lawyers out there are probably groaning because the NORIs, as we call [00:11:00] them, or notice of restricted information is a source of frustration to say at least. Because you could easily get a document that is kicked back from the clerk because it doesn’t have a NORI or the NORI doesn’t cover everything adequately, whatever it may be.

David Bulitt: All right. So, Chris, you refer to this word NORI. Can you tell folks what that is exactly?

Chris Castellano: Yeah, NORI. When I say NORI, I refer to a notice of restricted information. So, it’s a relatively new statute and rule that requires litigators to submit a form that identifies to the clerk that a document you’re filing with the court has what they refer to as restricted information. You know, so this could mean anything from financial information, bank account number, other personally identifying information, or information related to children and children expenses, etc. Right? All of that information is restricted by way of the rules. And you have to identify to the clerk [00:12:00] that the document you’re filing has that information.

David Bulitt: Okay. And so, let’s toggle for a minute and take all of this and sort of subsume it into what practical advice can you give to someone who’s getting ready to or going through a divorce based upon the implementation of this new statute? What should people consider? What should they think about? What should they do or not do?

Chris Castellano: Yeah, so, I mean, listen, one of the biggest takeaways is almost not a new or novel concept. It’s that just because we have a new what we’ll call privacy law going into effect doesn’t mean that you should say, oh, you know, the public’s going to have less access to my records. So, it’s open season. I’m just going to tell the court everything. A certain level of, certainly you have to maintain the same candor that you would with the court in your filings. But that doesn’t mean that you just dump all the information out there with the expectation [00:13:00] that it’s going to be private. Because, again, there’s a difference between secrecy and privacy. So.

David Bulitt: So, again, for clients, for folks out there, lay people who might be going through this, isn’t it a good idea when their lawyer says, here, we need to answer these questions, we need to provide these documents. If there’s something that you’re concerned about, you should raise that with your counsel. You should ask them if this is something that I have to provide. Is there something that the other side is going to see? Doesn’t that make sense?

Chris Castellano: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think that access to information is the tug of war that is inherent with representing these clients. Because, you know, certainly a client and the lawyer has similar and also somewhat independent obligations of candor to the court as well as to the other side to provide information. But you want to do that in a way that you are looking out for the best interests of not only your case, your client, but the court system overall.

David Bulitt: This day and age, we talk about CTAs, a call to action. [00:14:00] What’s your call to action for people out there listening who are, again, either thinking of on the brink of or during the course of getting a divorce litigation, a very real lawyer and so forth?

Chris Castellano: Yeah. So, and I’m sure that you’ve come across this plenty of times. There’s a lot of clients that are reticent to file for divorce because they, quote unquote, don’t want to air their dirty laundry, right? But this offers a level of mental security, if you will, that just because you are filing a case as of October 1, 2026 doesn’t mean that the whole public is going to have access to your case. There’s people up and down the socioeconomic ladder that have these concerns. It could be because the complaint has allegations of abuse, could be allegations of adultery, spending money in frivolous ways, whatever the allegations may be. Or it may be because you’re at the top of that ladder and you’ve got multimillion [00:15:00] dollar businesses and you don’t want potential customers who scour the internet for case records related to people to see the fact that all these documents are out there.

So this does offer a layer of protection and, again, privacy, not secrecy, but privacy to ensure that your business stays your business. It’s interesting, though, David, that the governor did veto the Senate bill as it was passed and the Senate overturned that veto in August. And so there is an interesting layer of you wonder what the impetus for a veto was when at the end of the day, the idea is to protect that information and keep it private. Because with so much of everyone’s lives being public, why does what could be considered the worst, worst time in someone’s life? Why does that have to be public as well? It’s just an interesting discussion, perhaps for another day or perhaps for a different [00:16:00] podcast. But the takeaway, privacy matters. And now in Maryland, as of October 1, 2026, we’re going to have a new ability to ensure that at least in our little world of divorce cases that we can ensure a layer of privacy.

David Bulitt: All right, folks, as always, Chris Castellano is a plethora of information, but all that information may very well lead to questions. And if they want to ask those questions or reach out to you, Chris, what’s the best way for them to get to you?

Chris Castellano: Yeah, as always, contact me at Joseph, Greenwald & Laake. My direct number is 240-399-7881. And I would be happy to talk about any privacy concerns relative to divorce matter that you may have.

David Bulitt: All right, as always, folks, we appreciate you being here. We appreciate you listening in. I appreciate having my law partner, Chris Castellano, take the time from his day to try to answer some questions, not only for everyone out there, but for me as well. This is David Bulitt, and this is JGL Law for You.