This is not a get rich quick kind of job. Everyone knows that.
I think the point that I have been trying to make is for the new abstractor that wants experience to gain employment in this field so they can go out on their own is to work with someone, whether it be an independent abstractor or a title company. You cannot gain the experience and intergrity to gain companies to work for if you do not have experience coming from being trained by someone other than yourself. I think that you are missing the whole point, Judy. Please correct me if I am wrong. I and every other competent attorney/title company in Maryland would not hire ANYONE, including the people that read the "abstractor" book or took the on line class that have self-taught experience to go and do title searches for my company. That is just a fact. I wouln't hire someone to handle my investment portfolio that did not gain experience from someone else. You have to be able to ask why over and over again and get the correct answer stuck in your head.
The blame lies on the people in the abstracting field that want to do this who:   1)do so without proper training/experience and 2) those who train people improperly.
I would not send the girl that I have working for me to the courthouse by herself unless she was doing a document retrieval a (me giving her the book and page number) and nothing else PERIOD, no title search and no judgment search, NOTHING.
It will take a year before I would consider that.
Where do you think the blame lies, Judy?