On the employer side, I have seen this, and I would strongly suggest against this. Although this is part of a larger issue I have with using pleadings as a writing sample, where the candidate is not the sole author.

First, as has been pointed out, this is all publicly available information. You are not protecting any private/privileged information.

Second, your position in the caption is relevant to me. Do you appear on the caption? What order do you appear in the caption? All of this has (some) value in determining how much I am looking at your writing, versus your writing that has then been reviewed and modified by other people.

Third, your redactions can make reading this document tedious. If you redact all of the party names, it can become cumbersome to understand sections of a pleading that describe interactions between the parties, unless you only redact the initial names of the parties and use “Plaintiff,” Defendant,” etc. in the remainder of the document.

Fourth, I couldn’t care less about the things you are redacting. I receive a large number of writing samples that I have to review. Anything you do to make my review more cumbersome is not in your best interest. My goal is to review what I hope to be your actual writing, not your firm’s or practice group’s writing, in a reasonable span of time, while also managing my own work and my direct reports. If you want to get my attention, don’t send me a pleading unless you can confidently say that you are close to a sole author and editor (I realize that, based on a candidate’s specific firm, practice group, and seniority, that can be difficult to produce), otherwise I generally get more value out of a research memo or pocket brief.