Lebra Shield
Take the busywork out of public records requests.
Lebra Shield is the AI-enabled public records platform that helps district staff find, organize, and prepare records. Respond to requests efficiently, with human approval at every step.
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Hi Jordan,
Following up on our call, here are the details on the vendor meeting next week. My personal cell is 555-0142 if you need to reach me.
The contract draft lists an advisory board member’s home address, 14 Orchard Lane. Please leave that out of the copy we circulate.
Best, Alex
Looks like a personal phone number.
Example data, Riverbend School District, a fictional district
Less busywork. More control.
Find, organize, and prepare records faster with AI-assisted workflows and human oversight.
Find what matters
Quickly surface responsive emails and files across your systems.
Review with context
Get AI-suggested redactions with explanations so you can move faster.
Prepare your response
Assemble a complete, redacted response packet, ready to send.
Three steps. You make every decision.
Every state has a public records law, and inside a district the work is the same. Most of the hours go to finding the records and redacting them. That is where Shield helps.
Find records.
Paste the request and drop in the export from Google Vault or Microsoft. You confirm what responds.
- Shield does
- Removes duplicates and automated mail, applies the custodians, dates and terms, and marks each thread responsive or not, with a reason.
- You decide
- What responds to the request.
Review redactions.
Your roster is checked first, so a student named Summer is caught as a name. You approve or reject each one.
- Shield does
- Suggests each redaction with its category, the supporting statute and a confidence.
- You decide
- Whether each redaction is approved or rejected.
Prepare response.
Everything the requester and your counsel need, in one packet.
- Shield does
- Assembles the numbered production, the index of what was withheld and why, the response letter from your state’s template, an itemized fee estimate and the decision log.
- You and counsel decide
- You decide when it goes out, and counsel can approve the whole packet first.
Each suggested redaction shows the statute behind it.
Shield uses your state’s deadlines, fee rules and redaction guidance: seven business days under OPRA in New Jersey, three working days in Idaho, three business days in Missouri.
As received
Thanks for the quick turnaround on the reading list. One note: Summer Hale will need the alternate text, and her IEP meeting notes (attached) explain why. Call me at 208-555-0142 if you have questions before Friday.
Redacted for production
Thanks for the quick turnaround on the reading list. One note: will need the alternate text, and her explain why. Call me at if you have questions before Friday.
- Student name Roster match · FERPA via Idaho Code 74-104(1)(a)Accepted by M. Reyes
- Student record FERPA via Idaho Code 74-104(1)(a)Accepted by M. Reyes
- Staff home phone Idaho Code 74-106(1)RejectAccept
What a records request asks of a district.
Every state has a public records law. New Jersey calls it OPRA, Missouri the Sunshine Law, Idaho the Public Records Act, Pennsylvania Right-to-Know, New York FOIL. The names differ. Inside a district the work is the same five steps, and most of the hours go to the middle three.
- Step 1The request arrives
By email, web form, or letter, often to a principal or a board member first. The clock starts when the custodian has it, and in some states whether anyone noticed or not.
- Step 2The records are pulled
IT exports mailboxes from Google Vault or Microsoft Purview and gathers documents from the business system. The volume is the first surprise.
- Step 3Every message is read
Each message is read, one at a time, to decide whether it responds to the request. Most of them do not.
- Step 4Every page is redacted by hand
Student names, staff home phones, medical details, counsel’s advice, blacked out page by page, usually in Acrobat or on paper.
- Step 5The packet goes out
A PDF, a letter, maybe an invoice. Usually no index of what was withheld and no record of who decided what.
What the work costs districts today.
- $85,000
in operating costs, plus a half-time public records officer, one Washington district told state lawmakers in February 2026.
- 60,000 pages
in one wave of OPRA requests at Toms River Regional Schools, New Jersey, during a school board election.
- $24,000 a year
on a three-year contract, for the eDiscovery suite one California district bought to keep up.
Shield is built around these five steps. The clock, the fee rules and the redaction categories come from your state’s pack. The decisions stay with your people.
Sources: Washington State Standard (Feb 2026); Patch (Toms River Regional Schools); Mountain View Whisman SD board materials (Apr 2025).
What changes on the next request.
TodayCentral office routes it. The clock starts whether anyone noticed or not.
With ShieldPaste it in. The state clock, the owner and the acknowledgment draft start together.
TodaySomeone exports email and reads every message to find the ones that respond.
With ShieldShield removes duplicates and automated mail, then marks each message responsive or not with a reason. You confirm.
TodaySomeone reads every page for student and staff details and blacks them out by hand, hoping nothing slips.
With ShieldEvery suggested redaction shows the category, the statute and a confidence. You accept or reject. Shield burns it in.
TodayA packet, a letter, maybe an invoice, and no record of who decided what.
With ShieldNumbered PDFs, the index of what was withheld and why, the letter, an itemized fee estimate and the decision log.
Built for the person who answers the request, not a law firm.
| By hand | Request trackers | eDiscovery suites | Lebra Shield | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Built for | Whoever has time | The intake queue | Legal teams | One central-office person with three working days |
| Reads the export | A person, page by page | No | Yes | Yes, with a reason per message |
| Suggests redactions with the statute | No | No | Generic PII and exemption codes | K-12 categories for your state, with citation and confidence |
| Catches names like Summer | Depends who is reading | No | Generic name detection | Your roster, checked before the model runs |
| Fee estimate under your state’s rules | By hand | — | — | Itemized |
| What it costs | Staff weekends | — | $24,000 a year at one district, on a three-year contract | Priced for a district. Pilot free. |
Request trackers track the request and the clock; they do not review the export. eDiscovery suites review it, for legal teams. The $24,000 figure is one district’s board-approved contract, April 2025. A dash means not a stated focus of that category.
Coming next
Fewer surprises in the record.
Shield also gives staff a second look in Gmail while they write. When a sentence could be quoted against the district, Shield says why in one line and offers a rewrite. Send anyway is always a button.
- Installed from Google Admin as a Chrome extension. Nothing on devices.
- Flags and outcomes are visible to leaders under your existing policies.
- Never a gate, and never advice to delete, call instead, or use a personal account.
A few parents have raised concerns about one of the readings. Let’s pull it so parents can’t see it. We can talk through the rest Thursday.
“Let’s pause the reading while we review it, and share the plan with families by Friday.”
Who uses Shield.
For records custodians, superintendents and district counsel.
Records custodians
Find, redact and respond as the one central-office person on the request, often with only a few business days to do it.
Superintendents
See responses go out on time, with a log of who decided what.
District counsel
Review each redaction and approve the whole packet before it goes out.
Your district’s data stays yours.
You answer to your board and your community for this data. Here is how we handle it.
Visit our Trust Center- SOC 2 Type IIAudited by an independent firm.
- NIST Cybersecurity Framework 2.0The framework our security program is built on.
- Hosted in the United StatesWith providers certified to SOC 2 and ISO 27001.
- Your district’s data is not used to train AI modelsIt is there to answer your questions and draft your documents.
- Exports are deleted on your scheduleEncrypted in transit and at rest, and deleted after the request closes.
Questions superintendents ask first.
What files can we upload?
MBOX and CSV from Google Vault, EML and CSV from Microsoft, and PDFs or Word files of anything else the request covers. PST import is next.
Where does our data go?
Exports are encrypted in transit and at rest, processed inside a boundary you approve, never used to train models, and deleted after the request closes on your schedule.
Can we charge for requests?
Most states allow it. Shield itemizes the estimate under your state’s rules, including labor for redaction where the law permits.
Does Shield work with OPRA in New Jersey?
Yes, as a state pack: the seven-business-day clock from the custodian’s receipt, the 2024 rules for email and text requests, the personal identifiers the amendments require you to redact, the GRC request form fields, and the special service charge. The New Jersey pack is drafted and goes to counsel before a district goes live. New Jersey districts can join the pilot now.
Lebra Shield supports timely, documented responses to public records requests. It does not provide legal advice, does not decide what the law permits, and does not prevent any record from being retained or produced.
Bring your last request. We’ll run it side by side.
Join the pilot in New Jersey, Idaho, or Missouri. One real request, your export, your roster, and a readout of what Shield caught and what it missed.
Schedule a demoSee Lebra on your district's own work.
Thirty minutes with someone from the Lebra team. Bring an evaluation framework, a board report or a policy question you're stuck on. We'll show you what Lebra does with it.
Not ready for a call? Watch a product video first.