Who we serve
Individuals & Families
No communications department, no legal team on retainer, and one search result standing in for an entire life. This is the version of the problem with the least institutional support and frequently the highest personal cost.
Private individuals occupy a genuinely different position from every other client this firm serves, and mostly a better one legally. Defamation standards are more favorable. Platform policies offer protections that do not extend to public figures. Statutory erasure rights, where they apply, apply here first. The available mechanisms are frequently stronger than people assume.
What is worse is everything else. There is no communications team, no in-house counsel, no budget line for this, and no one to call at eleven at night. There is often deep embarrassment, which delays people from seeking help for months while the material settles into the index. And the harm is immediate and personal rather than commercial: a job application, a rental agreement, a custody proceeding, a child who searched a parent's name.
The most common matters are a resolved legal issue that remains prominently visible; content published by someone during a dispute; a mugshot or records aggregator monetising a charge that was dismissed; a namesake's record being read as yours; and material posted about a family member, sometimes a minor.
Because the mechanisms here are comparatively strong, this is also the category where an honest assessment most often produces good news. A dismissed charge on an aggregator site, a record that has passed the publisher's own retention period, or content violating a platform's stated policy are all tractable, and frequently faster than people expect.
What is different here
Why this situation does not behave like the others.
Stronger legal footing
Private-individual standards in defamation, and platform policies that do not extend to public figures.
No institutional support
No communications team, no retained counsel, and no precedent for how to handle this.
The harm is immediate
Employment, housing, credit, custody, schooling. Not a valuation, a life.
Family members are involved
Material about a spouse, a parent, or a child, sometimes published deliberately to reach you.
Aggregators monetize the record
Sites that republish charges and then charge for removal. There are correct ways to handle these and expensive wrong ones.
Delay is common and costly
Embarrassment keeps people from asking for months, and the material becomes more established while they wait.
What usually applies
The mechanisms most often used in these matters.
Which of these applies to you, and in what order, is the substance of the assessment rather than something to select from a list.
Content Removal
The strongest available route for private individuals, and more often available than people expect.
Search Suppression
Where material cannot be removed, restoring proportion so one episode is not the whole record.
Autocomplete Repair
Predictions attaching an allegation to a private individual's name frequently violate platform policy.
AI Answer Correction
Where a model has merged your record with a namesake's, or is reporting a resolved matter as current.
Presence Architecture
Structural disambiguation, which is the durable fix when someone else's record is being read as yours.
Questions we are asked
- Can I afford this?
- You will get an honest reading of what your matter would involve before any figure is discussed. Some matters are narrow and quick; some are long. We will tell you which yours is before you spend anything, and if a straightforward route exists that you could pursue yourself, we will say so.
- A site is charging to remove my mugshot. Should I pay?
- Usually not, and not before an assessment. Payment often results in the record appearing on a related site, and in many jurisdictions the practice is now restricted. There are frequently better routes, including the publisher's own policies and applicable statutes.
- My charge was dismissed but it is still the first result. Can that be fixed?
- This is one of the more tractable matters in the practice. Many aggregators have retention policies they fail to apply, some jurisdictions provide erasure rights on dismissal, and the absence of the dismissal from the record is itself a correctable factual gap.
- Someone is posting about my child. What can be done?
- Material concerning minors receives the strongest protection across nearly every platform, and this is treated as urgent. Call rather than write if this is your situation.
- What does this cost?
- The fee is stated in a written proposal before any work begins, scoped to what the assessment finds. How that is arrived at is set out in full on the How We Work page.
Before you engage
Where the limits are.
Accurate reporting of a matter of genuine public record does not come down. Court records are public in most jurisdictions and newspapers do not remove accurate coverage, so where that is your situation the assessment says so in the first conversation and we work on proportion and context instead.
A matter that is still developing needs your attorney before it needs us. If you are currently in a proceeding, speak to them first, because acting on the digital record mid-proceeding can affect the proceeding. We are glad to work at their direction once they are engaged.
And we will not take a matter where the purpose is to conceal ongoing harm to another person. This includes matters presented as reputation problems that are, on examination, something else.
Tell us where you are.
One conversation, in confidence, with an honest reading of what can be changed, including when the answer is that nothing needs to be.