Are Employment Lawyers Disclosing the Reputational Risks of Litigation to Their Clients?

From Monday's decision by Judge Woods in Hui v. Federal Reserve Bank of N.Y. (S.D.N.Y.):

On April 30, 2025, Plaintiff filed an application to seal this case in its entirety. One distinguishing facet of the American legal system is its commitment to public access to the trial process. This legacy of "open justice" is as old as America itself. Because the plaintiff has not overcome the strong presumption to public access that attaches to judicial documents—including the complaint and the existence of the case itself—the motion to seal the case is DENIED….

Plaintiff sued in September 2024, claiming defendants had fired him based on his being Chinese-American and on his complaining about discrimination. According to the Complaint, his being of Chinese extraction (he came to the U.S. in 1990, at age 14, and has been a "proud United States citizen since 1995") led defendants to suspect him—with no evidence—of "somehow spying and/or acting as an agent for the Chinese government." On April 16, 2025, after some discovery disputes (which led to a judicial decision), the case settled. But on April 30, 2025, Plaintiff sought to seal the case, citing "'severe reputational damage' due to the public access [to case filings], which he asserts has resulted in 'deep personal and family financial difficulty.'"

But the court refused to seal the case:

There is a long-established "general presumption in favor of public access to judicial documents." … The presumption of access is "based on the need for federal courts … to have a measure of accountability and for the public to have confidence in the administration of justice." … [T]he presumption of public access to the information Plaintiff seeks to shield from the public [thus] has extraordinarily substantial weight. Plaintiff is seeking to shield from the public everything about this case—including decisions by the Court….

[As to] the countervailing interests that weigh against public disclosure[,] Plaintiff's privacy and reputational interests do not justify sealing the case in its entirety. Simply put, the harms Plaintiff asserts are no different than the consequences any litigant bringing a public lawsuit in this country faces.

The Court is sympathetic to the employment challenges that public record of an employment-related lawsuit can cause. But if the Court were to hold that Plaintiff's concerns regarding his future employment opportunities necessitated sealing an entire case, then any and all plaintiffs bringing employment discrimination claims could similarly seek to hide their cases from the public eye.

Additionally, Plaintiff took many steps in this litigation, from seeking a right-to-sue notice, filing a complaint, amending his complaint, contesting Defendant's purported motion to dismiss, to engaging in discovery. Plaintiff should have been aware at all stages of this case that the record of the case was public; yet he chose to pursue his claims nonetheless.

Further, because this case has been public for almost nine months, the harm Plaintiff raises has already manifested in a way that sealing cannot remedy. He asserts that his name "appears in public search results and has been indexed by over ten (10) legal case publication websites." Sealing the case now will not delete information stored on third-party websites and databases, and the Court cannot in this action order that others not act on the information already made publicly available….

Plaintiff's sealing request states, "this decision had an unintended and profoundly negative consequence: the lawsuit became publicly accessible and easily searchable online. I was unaware that such personal and sensitive information would be so accessible to anyone by simply searching my name on the Internet." Of course, perhaps the plaintiff's lawyer had indeed warned him at the outset that, once a case is filed, it's public and likely can't then be retroactively sealed. (I've seen a few courts agree to retroactively seal such cases, but that happens rarely, and is likely not consistent with the legal rules related to open access.) Maybe the plaintiff heard the warning, but didn't heed it.

But I wonder: Do plaintiffs' lawyers consistently provide such warnings—warnings that might scare off a potential client? (This may be a matter in many kinds of cases, not just employment cases, but my sense is that the reputational harms can be particularly serious in employment litigation.) I'd love to hear what readers know about that, especially based on their experience either as lawyers or as clients.