What we detect
We pattern-match against the categories that most often surface in motions submitted to LexGrade:
- Social Security numbers in the standard ###-##-#### shape.
- Phone numbers in common US formats — (212) 555-1234, 212.555.1234, and so on.
- Email addresses.
- Account numbers — 9 to 16 digit sequences appearing alongside words like “account,” “acct,” or a dollar sign.
- Dates of birth introduced by “DOB” or “date of birth.”
- References to minors — phrases like “the minor child” or “the infant,” and adjacent initial patterns.
- NYSCEF document numbers in the “Doc. No. 5” shape.
- Street addresses with a number, name, and recognized street suffix.
What we don’t detect
We are a pattern matcher, not an auditor. We can’t identify:
- Full names that don’t appear next to a flagged pattern. A party caption with no other PII passes through unflagged.
- Sensitive narrative content (medical history, immigration status, mental-health references) that doesn’t match a structural pattern.
- Identifiers we haven’t taught the detector about (foreign tax IDs, internal docket numbers, professional license numbers).
- Misspelled or unusually formatted instances of patterns we do detect.
If the detector finds nothing, that does not mean your text is safe to submit. It means we didn’t see any of the specific shapes we look for. Your judgment is the final check.
Recommended conventions
If you find PII in your draft, common redaction conventions:
- Initials for minors. “J.M.” rather than “Jane Marie Smith.”
- Year-only for dates of birth. “born 1985” rather than “6/12/1985” — the practice court rules require (22 NYCRR 202.5(e) in New York; Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 5.2 in federal court).
- Last four for account and SSN. “Account ending in 1234” or “XXX-XX-1234.”
- Bracketed placeholders. “[REDACTED]”, “[ADDRESS]”, “[EMAIL]” — preserves the shape of the document without preserving the identifier.
Why we warn rather than automatically redact
Automatic redaction would overwrite your text on your behalf. That raises consent questions (which version did you mean to send?) and reversibility questions (the original is gone). For now, we warn and trust you to make the redaction decision yourself. The text we store is the text you typed, minus whatever you choose to take out before clicking Verify.
What happens when a run is flagged
If you submit a run with high-sensitivity findings (SSN, account number, date of birth), it enters an operator redaction queue. That means a LexGrade operator can see that your run was flagged for redaction review, plus its status and citation counts, and may follow up about whether you’d like it purged — but operators never see your document text or what the specific PII was. You can also delete any run yourself from its detail page.
Questions? Email hello@lexgrade.com.