How it works
Every search should be able to explain itself.
Seven stages between an order arriving and a record being returned. Each one records what was done and against which source, because a record without provenance is a claim, not evidence.
The workflow
Order in, verified record out.
Order received
The request arrives from your platform and is validated against the subject and scope you sent. A malformed order is rejected at intake with a reason, not failed silently three stages later.
Jurisdiction identified
Resolved to the source that actually holds the record. Where a county has no court of record, the request is routed to the court that does, and the routing is stated on the result.
Research method selected
Chosen from what that source supports: on-site, public terminal, clerk request or credentialed portal. The method sets the scope of the search, so it is decided deliberately.
Identifier check
Confirmed against what the source will actually accept before anything is dispatched. If a required identifier is missing we ask, rather than consuming a fee on a request that cannot succeed.
Primary-source research
The index is searched by the selected method. The researcher reference and the search timestamp are recorded against the result.
Verification & quality review
A second reviewer independently confirms identifier match and disposition before release. Disagreement sends the request back to research rather than being resolved by discussion.
Delivery
The record is returned to your platform with the research method and the search timestamp attached, so your own audit trail stays intact and does not need to be reconstructed if the file is later challenged.
This is the operating model the service is built around. Jurisdiction-specific figures — turnaround, fees, conditions — are published per jurisdiction in a coverage review rather than as national averages.
Quality
Two reads before release
One researcher reading one index is a single point of failure. Identifier match and disposition are confirmed by a reviewer who has not seen the first read.
A discrepancy is logged against the jurisdiction, so a pattern surfaces instead of repeating quietly across hundreds of orders.
Exceptions
Reported, not absorbed
Court closures, clerk policy changes, index outages and fee changes are logged against the jurisdiction and surfaced on the affected orders.
A turnaround figure that quietly swallows a two-day closure is a number you cannot plan against. We would rather tell you the office was shut.
See it against your own jurisdictions.
A workflow is easy to describe. A coverage review for the counties you actually order in is the version you can check.
Request a coverage review