Can my therapy records be subpoenaed?

A: A subpoena can ask. It is not an order, and California builds in a specific chance for you to stop it — but that chance runs out on the production date, and doing nothing can waive the privilege.¹ Therapy records are named in the statute: "personal records" includes records held by a psychotherapist as the Evidence Code defines that term.²

You must be served before your therapist is. The party seeking the records has to serve you with a copy of the subpoena, the supporting affidavit and a specific warning notice — not less than 10 days before the production date named in the subpoena, and at least five days before the subpoena is served on your therapist, with extra time added if service is by mail.³ Your therapist may not produce anything until the requesting party proves that you were served, or hands over a written authorisation signed by you or your attorney.⁴ And if that procedure was not followed, non-compliance "shall be sufficient basis for the witness to refuse to produce" the records — your therapist can say no.⁵

How you object depends on whether you are a party.

• If you are a party to the case, you file a motion to quash or modify the subpoena before the production date, and give the therapist and the deposition officer at least five days' notice that you have brought it.⁶
• If you are not a party — the far more common situation when someone else's case reaches your records — you may simply serve a written objection stating the specific grounds on the subpoenaing party, your therapist and the deposition officer. No motion, no filing fee.⁶

Either way the effect is the same and it is worth quoting: no witness "shall be required to produce personal records after receipt of notice that the motion has been brought by a consumer, or after receipt of a written objection from a nonparty consumer, except upon order of the court … or by agreement."⁶ The requesting party then has 20 days to move to enforce, with a meet-and-confer declaration.⁶

If you do nothing, the privilege can go. Consent to disclosure is "manifested by any statement or other conduct of the holder of the privilege indicating consent to the disclosure, including failure to claim the privilege in any proceeding in which the holder has legal standing and the opportunity to claim it."¹ Silence is not neutral here.

Two details that matter in practice. If the records are a minor's, service is made on the parent or guardian and on the minor if the minor is at least 12 years old.³ And a court may, on good cause and a showing of due diligence, shorten the time or waive the notice requirement altogether — so the 10 days are a default, not a guarantee.⁷

What actually opens the file. The privilege is lost as to communications relevant to your mental or emotional condition where you have tendered that condition as an issue — or someone claiming through you, a beneficiary of a contract with you, or a wrongful-death plaintiff has — not where the other side merely alleges it.⁸ That is the fight that matters in family court, and it has its own page. Therapy records in a custody case →

Do this: the day a subpoena arrives, note the production date on it — that is your deadline, and everything else counts backwards from it. Tell your therapist immediately; their duty is to claim the privilege on your behalf unless someone authorised tells them otherwise.⁹ If you are not a party, a written objection served on all three recipients is the cheap route and it stops production by itself. If you are a party, or if the dates are already tight, that is a call to a lawyer today rather than next week.

Sources

1. Evidence Code §912(a) — leginfo.legislature.ca.gov. Subdivisions (c) and (d) preserve disclosures that are themselves privileged or reasonably necessary to the purpose for which the psychotherapist was consulted.
2. Code of Civil Procedure §1985.3(a)(1), which defines "personal records" to include records maintained by a "psychotherapist, as defined in Section 1010 of the Evidence Code" — leginfo.legislature.ca.gov.
3. Code of Civil Procedure §1985.3(b)(1)–(3) and (e). Section 1013 supplies the extra time where service is by mail. The 12-and-over rule for a minor is in (b)(1).
4. Code of Civil Procedure §1985.3(c)(1)–(2).
5. Code of Civil Procedure §1985.3(k).
6. Code of Civil Procedure §1985.3(g), and §1987.1, which lets the court quash, modify or condition a subpoena, including to protect against "unreasonable violations of the right of privacy of the person." Section 1987.1(c) confirms that nothing in it requires a consumer served under §1985.3 to move to quash.
7. Code of Civil Procedure §1985.3(h).
8. Evidence Code §1016. The privilege itself is at §1014, the definition of "confidential communication" at §1012, and the holder at §1013.
9. Evidence Code §1015 — the psychotherapist "shall claim the privilege" whenever present and authorised to do so under §1014(c).

All sections read on the operative text on 18 August 2026. This page describes the statute; it is not legal advice, and the deadlines are short. A lawyer can act before the production date; nobody can act after it.

Notes versus the record: the federal definition of psychotherapy notes, and why a lawyer's letter is not a court's order. What are psychotherapy notes, and who can see them? →

The dangerous-patient exception: Will my therapist warn someone if I threaten them? →