Research legal records

Middesk supports additional risk assessment by pulling legal records for a business or person:

• Litigations (legal cases)
• Bankruptcy filings
• People criminal history

Separately or combined, these records help identify potential legal risks, assess reputation, and make informed decisions about business relationships.

Search for litigations

Middesk’s Litigations product enables you to access court case records associated with businesses and individuals.

Middesk searches for various types of court cases, including:

• Civil litigation, contract disputes, business disputes, and other civil matters
• Debt collection cases, actions to recover unpaid debts
• Commercial disputes, business-to-business legal conflicts
• Other case types, additional legal proceedings as available in public records

How to retrieve litigations

Retrieving litigations requires that you first create a business, then request an order for that business.

• For business litigations, request a litigations order
• For associated people litigations, request a people_litigations order

You can do this in the Dashboard or the API.

Understand litigation results

The litigations response contains detailed information about each court case found associated with the business or person.

Litigation object structure

Each litigation object includes the following key attributes:

1
{
2
  "object": "list",
3
  "data": [
4
    {
5
      "id": "litigation_00000000000000000000000000",
6
      "case_name": "First National Bank v. Example Business Inc",
7
      "case_number": "2023-CV-12345",
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      "case_status": "Open",
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      "case_type": "Debt Collection",
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      "filing_date": "2023-06-15",
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      "judgment": [
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        {
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          "entry_date": "2023-06-15",
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          "text": "Complaint filed by plaintiff",
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          "amount_cents": null
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        },
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        {
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          "entry_date": "2023-07-20",
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          "text": "Default judgment entered in favor of plaintiff for $15,000",
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          "amount_cents": 1500000
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        }
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      ],
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      "jurisdictions": "San Francisco County Superior Court, CA",
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      "party_type": "Defendant"
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    }
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  ]
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}

How to order litigations

Litigation searches require a completed Verify order. You can order both together as a bundle or sequentially.

$
curl -X POST https://api.middesk.com/v1/businesses \
>
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
>
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
>
  -d '{
>
    "name": "Acme Corporation",
>
    "addresses": [
>
      {
>
        "address_line1": "123 Main Street",
>
        "city": "San Francisco",
>
        "state": "CA",
>
        "postal_code": "94105"
>
      }
>
    ],
>
    "orders": [
>
      { "product": "business_verification_verify" },
>
      { "product": "litigations" }
>
    ]
>
  }'

How to order people litigations

People litigation searches require a completed Verify order. You can order both together as a bundle or sequentially.

$
curl -X POST https://api.middesk.com/v1/businesses \
>
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
>
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
>
  -d '{
>
    "name": "Acme Corporation",
>
    "addresses": [
>
      {
>
        "address_line1": "123 Main Street",
>
        "city": "San Francisco",
>
        "state": "CA",
>
        "postal_code": "94105"
>
      }
>
    ],
>
    "people": [
>
      {
>
        "name": "Jane Smith"
>
      }
>
    ],
>
    "orders": [
>
      { "product": "business_verification_verify" },
>
      { "product": "people_litigations" }
>
    ]
>
  }'

Find bankruptcies

Reviewing and monitoring bankruptcies helps determine the level of financial risk you take on when onboarding and lending to businesses.

Finding bankruptcies requires that you first create a business, then request an order for that business.

• For business bankruptcies, request a bankruptcies order
• For associated people bankruptcies, request a people_bankruptcies order

You can do this in the Dashboard or the API.

If Middesk finds bankruptcies, the resulting details include:

• Debtor, the individual or entity that owes money to another party
• Trustee, the individual responsible for the bankruptcy and all case proceedings
• Court, the court in which the hearing takes place, including the office number, district, and case number
• Chapter, the chapter in the collection of types of court cases that bankruptcy falls into
• Updates, a sequence of events for the case that includes a description, a reference, and the event date

How to order bankruptcies

Bankruptcy searches require a completed Verify order. You can order both together as a bundle or sequentially.

$
curl -X POST https://api.middesk.com/v1/businesses \
>
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
>
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
>
  -d '{
>
    "name": "Acme Corporation",
>
    "addresses": [
>
      {
>
        "address_line1": "123 Main Street",
>
        "city": "San Francisco",
>
        "state": "CA",
>
        "postal_code": "94105"
>
      }
>
    ],
>
    "orders": [
>
      { "product": "business_verification_verify" },
>
      { "product": "bankruptcies" }
>
    ]
>
  }'

How to order people bankruptcies

People bankruptcy searches require a completed Verify order. You can order both together as a bundle or sequentially.

$
curl -X POST https://api.middesk.com/v1/businesses \
>
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
>
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
>
  -d '{
>
    "name": "Acme Corporation",
>
    "addresses": [
>
      {
>
        "address_line1": "123 Main Street",
>
        "city": "San Francisco",
>
        "state": "CA",
>
        "postal_code": "94105"
>
      }
>
    ],
>
    "people": [
>
      {
>
        "name": "Jane Smith"
>
      }
>
    ],
>
    "orders": [
>
      { "product": "business_verification_verify" },
>
      { "product": "people_bankruptcies" }
>
    ]
>
  }'

Search for criminal history

A third type of legal record Middesk can pull is an individual’s criminal history. Request a people_criminal_history order on a business to trigger a search for criminal records associated with the submitted people on the business.

How to order people criminal history

People criminal history searches require a completed Verify order. You can order both together as a bundle or sequentially.

For people criminal history searches, the following fields are required for each person:

• first_name - The person’s first name
• last_name - The person’s last name
• dob - The person’s date of birth

The following fields are optional but can improve search accuracy and results:

• ssn - Social Security Number
• phone_numbers - Array of phone number objects in E.164 format. Format: [{ "phone_number": "+1234567890" }]
• middle_name - The person’s middle name

$
curl -X POST https://api.middesk.com/v1/businesses \
>
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
>
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
>
  -d '{
>
    "name": "Acme Corporation",
>
    "addresses": [
>
      {
>
        "address_line1": "123 Main Street",
>
        "city": "San Francisco",
>
        "state": "CA",
>
        "postal_code": "94105"
>
      }
>
    ],
>
    "people": [
>
      {
>
        "first_name": "Jane",
>
        "last_name": "Smith",
>
        "dob": "1985-05-15",
>
        "ssn": "123456789",
>
        "phone_numbers": [
>
          { "phone_number": "+17075555555" }
>
        ]
>
      }
>
    ],
>
    "orders": [
>
      { "product": "business_verification_verify" },
>
      { "product": "people_criminal_history" }
>
    ]
>
  }'

Once completed, the Person object includes a criminal_records array of details.

Understand criminal records

The criminal records response contains detailed information about each criminal record found associated with the person.

Criminal records object structure

Each criminal record object includes the following key attributes:

Review tasks

Legal record searches generate review tasks that summarize findings. These tasks appear in the Business object’s review.tasks array.

bankruptcies review task

Identify bankruptcy filings associated with the business.

litigations review task

Identify litigation records associated with the business.

For people-related legal review tasks (people_bankruptcies, people_litigations, people_criminal_history), see People verification review tasks.

Next steps