(1) The director of state courts shall maintain a list of commonly-filed documents made confidential by statutes, court rules and case law, and shall make this list publicly available. Documents on the list may be submitted by a party without a motion or court order and will be automatically treated by the court as confidential.
801.20.When documents may be filed as confidential.
Ch. 801: Commencement of Action and Venue · Last amended 2015 · Last verified July 15, 2026
In one sentenceSection 801.20 lets a party file certain commonly-recognized confidential documents on a director-maintained public list without a motion, while requiring the filer to properly identify the document as confidential.
Full Text of Section 801.20
(2) A filing party is responsible for properly identifying a document as confidential at the time it is filed. The court is not required to review documents to determine if the documents are confidential in nature.
Official Notes
NOTE: Sup. Ct. Order No. 14-04 states: “Comments to Wis. Stat. ss. 801.19, 801.20, and 801.21 are not adopted, but will be published and may be consulted for guidance in interpreting and applying the statute.”
Comment, 2015: Confidentiality of court documents is often an area of confusion for the public, lawyers, and court-related professionals. This problem can be addressed by publishing a list of commonly-filed documents that the court will automatically treat as confidential without a motion because they are protected by statutes, court rules, or case law. The filing party must properly identify the document at the time it is filed. Court staff are not required to review documents to determine confidentiality.
Plain-English Summary
Section 801.20 offers a shortcut for documents that are confidential as a matter of settled law, rather than by case-specific court order. The director of state courts keeps a publicly available list of commonly-filed documents that statutes, court rules, and case law already make confidential. A party filing one of those documents doesn’t need to file a motion or get a separate court order first — the court automatically treats it as confidential once it’s submitted.
That convenience comes with a corresponding duty. The filing party is responsible for correctly marking the document as confidential at the time of filing, since the court isn’t required to review every filed document to figure out on its own whether something on the list has been submitted without the proper label.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need a court order to file a document that is already recognized as confidential under Wisconsin law?
No, not if it’s on the director of state courts’ list of commonly-filed confidential documents. Section 801.20 lets that kind of document be filed without a motion or order and treated automatically as confidential.
Who maintains the list of documents that are automatically confidential in Wisconsin court filings?
Section 801.20 assigns that responsibility to the director of state courts, who must keep the list current and make it publicly available.
What kinds of legal authority put a document on this confidentiality list?
Section 801.20 describes the list as covering documents made confidential by statutes, court rules, and case law, rather than documents a party believes on its own should be confidential.
Whose job is it to mark a document as confidential when filing it?
Section 801.20 places that responsibility on the filing party, and states that the court is not required to review documents to determine whether they are confidential.
What if I want to protect a document that isn’t on the director’s confidentiality list?
Section 801.20 only covers documents already recognized as confidential under existing law; protecting anything outside that list requires the separate motion-to-seal procedure the chapter provides elsewhere.
Amendment History
History: Sup. Ct. Order No. 14-04, 2015 WI 89, 364 Wis. 2d xv.
Source & verification. Section text and official notes are
reproduced verbatim from the Wisconsin Statutes, published by the
Wisconsin Legislature (Legislative Reference Bureau). Last verified July 15, 2026.
· Official source
Also known as: confidential court documents list wisconsinautomatically confidential filings wisconsindirector of state courts confidentiality list