Sep
26

Law Firm Background Check and Other Investigative Tools for Legal Professionals

A law firm background check can help make good hiring decisions beyond the interview process. Not only do you want to hire people who are honest about themselves and their histories, but you also want to hire people who you trust to work closely with other employees, clients, and the community.

However, law firm background checks can also be helpful when it comes to clients and cases. There are other investigative tools legal professionals can use to get necessary information accurately and quickly. Keep reading to find out how you can make better hiring decisions and resolve more cases.

3 Reasons to Conduct a Law Firm Background Check

Conducting a background check is an important process for many industries. Law firm background checks are especially important not only for hiring decisions but also for vetting clients and resolving cases.

1. Hiring Decisions

Law firm background checks ensure that you make the right hiring decisions for your team. You need to know who you are working with on a daily basis, and most importantly, you want to be sure that people are who they say they are. Since attorneys and paralegals work to uphold the law, it’s important that you protect yourself by hiring honest and trustworthy employees. Additionally, utilizing online legal documents can streamline the hiring process, ensuring that all necessary forms and agreements are properly executed.

Conducting a background check yourself ensures that you get the most up-to-date information. For this reason, it is also a good idea to conduct regular background checks on existing employees to keep up with any changes. This ensures honesty and a safe work environment which is especially important as your legal professionals work closely with your clients and community. 

2. Represent Who You Want

In addition to potential and existing employees, you can run a background check on your clients. You want to work with people who are honest about their histories so that you can do your job more effectively. 

Rather than relying on information that clients give you voluntarily, conducting a law firm background check allows you to build more complete client and defendant profiles. This way, you can decide who you want to work with and which cases to take on.  

3. Resolve Cases

It’s your job as a legal professional to know everything about your clients. Getting blindsided by overlooked information can be detrimental to your cases. Running a background, criminal, and/or civil records check gives you access to current and previous addresses and phone numbers, DOBs, criminal records, reported bankruptcies, and more. 

With just a first and last name and date of birth, you can access a person’s charge, offense, disposition type, sentence, probation, and conviction, if applicable. Need more? There are a number of other investigative tools legal professionals can use to get all available information for clients to help close more cases.

10 Other Investigative Tools for Legal Professionals

These 10 resources are especially useful for legal professionals. From reliably contacting clients to investigating them, the more accurate data you have, the more successful you will be.

Arrest Warrant Search

With just a first and last name, you can search arrest warrants whether active or old. Results typically include offense date and type, warrant type, court issuing warrant, bail amount, and last seen location.

Bankruptcy, Liens, and Judgements

Court judgment, bankruptcy, and lien search finds all the financial history data you need to handle financially related cases. Results include any reported bankruptcies, foreclosures, tax liens (city, county, state, and federal), tax warrants, civil and federal judgments, notices of default, small claims, or suit filed against someone.

Marriage and Divorce Records

Marriage and divorce records search can provide you with information you might need for character-building or cases that involve a client’s marriage history. This search allows you to evaluate someone’s marriage history and patterns. Results include the names of the bride and groom, ages, county, and date of marriage. Divorce records offer petitioner and respondent names, county of divorce, and date of divorce.

People Search

Use people search to quickly and easily find people by name. All you need is a last name. People search provides you with information for tracking down defendants and debtors, serving processes faster, and closing more cases. Results typically include full name, address, phone number, age or DOB marital status, relatives, and/or length of residence.

Reverse Phone Lookup

Reverse phone lookup provides you with the information behind unknown numbers. Want to know if an unknown number belongs to a defendant, potential client, or a robocaller? Use reverse phone lookup to identify the people behind text messages and phone calls. 

Identify Phone Number

A phone validator lets you know the line type of a phone number. So if you have a list of client phone numbers, a phone validator lets you know which ones are mobile, landline, or VoIP. So if you use (or want to use) SMS text messaging to communicate with your clients, a phone validator can save you time and money.

SMS Text Messaging

SMS text messaging allows you to reliably communicate with clients and defendants through a documented communication channel. You can send SMS messages quickly and easily with our unique text messaging tool. (If you don’t have the phone company of the receiver, Searchbug can attempt to determine the carrier for you.)

Reverse Address Lookup

Reverse address lookup allows you to enter the physical addresses of defendants and clients to get contact phone numbers for them. Use this tool to find names and phone numbers of people (and businesses) from just a street address.

IP Address Verification

IP addresses can be used to verify an online access point for case evidence. If this is all you have to work with, IP address verification can find the location, ISP, and hostname for any IP address. 

Verify Email Address

Mistakes can be made when receiving and entering contact information into your database. Therefore, it’s important to verify email addresses in your database periodically. This prevents you from using incorrect information to contact defendants. Use an email validator to find out if an email address is safe for mailing before using it. 

Conduct a Law Firm Background Check Today

It’s important to conduct a law firm background check to make sure that attorneys and paralegals are qualified and trustworthy. When it comes to upholding the law and working closely with members of the community, you want to be sure you mitigate any unnecessary risks. It’s your reputation on the line which in turn affects the success of your business. Searchbug offers a number of other resources and tools especially useful for legal professionals. Find clients, contact them effectively, and represent them well knowing that you’re working with complete, up-to-date information. Want to vet your clients before working with them and close more cases? Moreover, incorporating Power of Attorney templates in your legal documentation process can streamline the handling of critical matters, ensuring clarity and precision in representing clients and managing cases effectively.

Try your first law firm background check today for free!