I have only had one client ask for our absractors' notes. I happily provide them; after all, they paid for them. This particular client had never used non-attorneys to do their searches - they only hired attorney-abstractors and for years they had a full-time attorney on the payroll who did pretty much nothing but abstracting. I think the cost of that finally caught up with them. When you have to compete with other companies who do not use attorneys for abstracting, it puts you at a disadvantage.
This county was one of the last to embrace independent abstractors. When I started working there 15 years ago, it was not very abstractor friendly. I remember a couple of attorneys who would rather loudly say, in my presence, that "non-attorney abstractors were ruining this industry. They don't know what they are doing and it is creating more work" for them.
When we got the call that they were interested in having us do their title work, I was proud that we had developed a good enough reputation to earn their trust. I had no problem with them wanting to review our abstractors' notes.
It may have something to do with the fact that there are many "inexperienced" abstractors out there and it probably makes them feel better seeing all of the notes from the search to be able to see that everything was properly checked. I welcome it, and I wish more people cared as much about the quality of the search.
Best,
Robert A. Franco
SOURCE OF TITLE
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