I have been in the abstracting Industry for over 15 years. I have also been a licensed Real Estate Agent for over 11 years.  In my opinion  In our Industry your Realtors are the top of the food chain, they have a powerful say in where the loan goes, the settlement, and so many other services that make up the transaction.  If you ask almost any Realtor do they know the title search for their sale was probably done overseas they will be shocked, but that is as far as it will go because as long as it does not effect the out come of the sale nothing will change.  Bottom line close it get paid, no more concern than the fact our oil/gas comes from the middle east to run the car to show the properties. 

   Sorry probably a poor analogy, but you get the point.  Where you do get their attention is with law, regulation, policy, and FINES.  The NAR {National Association of Realtors} has a political advocacy like no other they get things done, and protect Realtors with proper legislation.  Also every area has a local association, but work with NAR.  Here it is HRRA. 

   My suggestion is NALTEA get on board with NAR, and offer abstractors an associate membership to NAR, If NAR says Realtors must use a NAR Associate Member Abstractor, then we're back in business.  We need legislation, and regulation in our industry to protect us; certification, continued education, and representation.  I have to put my real estate license number on every contract I write, and comply with DPOR {Department of Regulation}.  In Virginia you have to have a license to be a Nail Technician, Wax Technician, but not an Abstractor dealing with one of the most important parts of this real estate transaction.  I kid you not.  Google DPOR, and look at profession and occupations, and try not to say WTF why abstractors are not considered for a license.

  This won't happen overnight, but hopefully we can act before our industry is gone totally overseas, while we still have an industry. I still enjoy abstracting it just ticks me off that most of what we get any more is something Haji overseas couldn't figure out, and will take us hours to do correctly.  Then the client doesn't want to pay for our extra times so we work for less then rupee's.

 This is just my opinion thanks for reading.