Redacting a PDF for a federal appeal

Updated September 5, 2026. Not legal advice; confirm the current rule, the local rules and any order in your case.

What Rule 25(a)(5) says

Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 25(a)(5) applies to briefs, appendices and every other filing in a federal court of appeals. Quoted from the rule text published by the Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School, read September 5, 2026:

An appeal in a case whose privacy protection was governed by Federal Rule of Bankruptcy Procedure 9037, Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 5.2, or Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 49.1 is governed by the same rule on appeal. In all other proceedings, privacy protection is governed by Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 5.2, except that Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 49.1 governs when an extraordinary writ is sought in a criminal case.

So the list of what may appear in the filing is the list from the rule below. For a civil appeal, and for petitions for review and other proceedings that did not start in a district court, that is Rule 5.2(a):

1. the last four digits of the social-security number and taxpayer-identification number;
2. the year of the individual's birth;
3. the minor's initials; and
4. the last four digits of the financial-account number.

A criminal appeal, or an extraordinary writ in a criminal case, follows Rule 49.1(a), which adds the home address of an individual, reduced to city and state. A bankruptcy appeal follows Rule 9037(a), where the minor category covers an individual other than the debtor.

Rule 25(a)(5) is a pointer, not a list. Identify the rule that governed the case below first; the redaction categories follow from it.

Every appellate filing is a fresh filing. Material that was redacted below stays redacted; material quoted or reproduced for the first time on appeal must be redacted now.

Circuit local rules govern the format of briefs and appendices, including whether the appendix must be text-searchable and how it is bookmarked. Check the circuit's rules and its ECF guidance before building the appendix.

Sealing, protective orders and mistakes

Electronic filing (Rule 25(a)(2)(B)(i))

A person represented by an attorney must file electronically, unless nonelectronic filing is allowed by the court for good cause or is allowed or required by a local rule.

What to search for in the PDF

The rule names categories; the PDF holds them as text, as form-field values, as comments and as pixels on scanned pages. Search all of those, not only the visible page.

Category	What may remain	Where to look
The appendix	what the rule below allows	the appendix reproduces record documents that were redacted at filing below; check that the copies you are assembling are the redacted versions, not the sealed originals or the discovery copies
Quoted record material in the brief	what the rule below allows	identifiers quoted from testimony, exhibits and orders; the brief is a new filing and the rule applies to it afresh
Social Security and account numbers	the last four digits	nine-digit numbers and account numbers in financial exhibits reproduced in the appendix
Home addresses in criminal appeals	the city and state	addresses in presentence material and witness records; the civil rule has no such category, so check which rule governs before you start

How to redact so nothing leaks

1. OCR scanned pages first, so search finds every instance and no later OCR pass resurrects the text.
2. Search by pattern and by name, then review every hit. Accept or reject before applying anything.
3. Remove, then draw. True redaction deletes the text and image data, then marks the area. A box drawn over live text is not a redaction.
4. Scrub the rest of the file: metadata, comments, bookmarks, attachments, hidden layers, form fields.
5. Save as a new file, never an incremental save, so the earlier revision is gone.
6. Verify by extracting the text of the output and searching for every redacted term, then keep a redaction log.

The full method, with the places redacted information hides and how to verify by hand, is in How to redact a PDF properly.

How ExhibitSet handles it

ExhibitSet's search-and-redact ships with pattern presets for Social Security and taxpayer-identification numbers, dates of birth and financial-account numbers, finds matches in page text, form-field values and comments, and shows each hit for review. Applying removes the underlying text and image data; the output is then re-read and searched for every marked term, and the job refuses to report success if anything is still found. The redaction log records page, reason and area without the redacted text. Everything runs in your browser; no document, page or file name is uploaded.

Frequently asked questions

Which redaction rule applies in my appeal?

The rule that governed the case below: Rule 5.2 for civil cases, Rule 49.1 for criminal cases, Rule 9037 for bankruptcy. For proceedings that did not start under one of those rules, Rule 5.2 applies, except that Rule 49.1 governs an extraordinary writ sought in a criminal case.

The document was redacted in the district court. Do I need to do anything for the appendix?

Use the redacted, docketed version. Do not rebuild the appendix from discovery copies or sealed originals, which carry the unredacted identifiers.

Is a black box drawn over the number enough?

No. A box drawn over live text leaves the text in the file. True redaction removes the text and image data and is verified by searching the output.