A Public Legal Records check reviews official government sources and publicly available databases to identify an individual's involvement in legal, regulatory or administrative proceedings. It returns matches to civil filings, court decisions, regulatory enforcement actions, debarments, professional disqualifications, financial judgments, and inclusion on wanted or fugitive lists. Results may also include profile information such as employment history, associated websites, and known locations.

Note: This is not a substitute for an official criminal record check.

The Public Legal Records check is one of several check types which comprised Softcheck in Certn’s legacy system.

In this article

Order this check

To order a Public Legal Records check from CertnCentric you must have the applicant’s email address. For more information on ordering checks through CertnCentric, see the Order checks Certn Help article.

Turnaround time for this check

On average, Certn’s Public Legal Records checks are complete within 60 seconds of an applicant submitting their information.

US-based applicants may be subject to a manual review which takes an average of 24 hours to complete.

Stages of this check

Public Legal Records checks ordered through CertnCentric go through the following stages:

1. Order

You place an order that includes a Public Legal Records check.

2. Application

The applicant receives an email invitation to complete the application that includes a Public Legal Records check.

3. Processing

Certn processes the check using the information received from your applicant*.

*To begin processing the Public Legal Records check, Identity Verification must be completed successfully.

4. Results

The check’s results become available to you in CertnCentric and to the applicant in the applicant portal.

Applicant experience

When you order a Public Legal Records check your applicant receives an email inviting them to complete an application. Through the application process for this check, an applicant will supply Certn with their:

consent and authorization to run the check,
full name (including previous names and aliases),
date of birth,
address details and when they started living there, as well as
address details of the position for which they are applying (includes options for no specific address and remote work).

Next steps

After you've placed your order and Certn has received the required details from your applicant, the check begins processing.

You can view the case and check results in CertnCentric. Learn more in our Manage your cases Certn Help article.

To learn more about this check’s results and what happens if the applicant can’t complete the check, see our Public Legal Records checks results Certn Help article.