Editorial Policy: How Legal Journal Researches Its Guides

Official Sources First

Legal Journal links to primary and official sources. In practice that means a strict preference order: government sites first (state judiciary portals, court clerk offices, legislatures, federal courts and PACER), then the American Bar Association and accredited law-school libraries, then long-established primary-source archives. When we explain how to find a court record, the link goes to the court system that holds the record, not to a commercial reseller of it.

We do not link to commercial record brokers, people-search sites, or pay-to-remove "background check" services. If a state offers no official online search, we say so and link the judiciary's homepage rather than substitute an unofficial source.

Every external URL is checked against the live official site before a page is published. If we cannot verify that a portal exists and works, we do not link it.

How Pages Are Researched and Written

Every page on this site follows the same research process. Each guide starts from the official source it describes: we read the court system's own instructions, fee schedules, and access rules, then summarize them in plain language. Where a page cites a statute or a court decision, we state what it says conservatively and link to where you can read the original.

We publish under the site's name rather than individual bylines, and we do not attach reviewer names or credentials to pages. What we publish is general reference information about where legal materials live and how public systems work. It is never legal advice, and no page tells you what to do about your specific situation.

Update and Review Cycle

Official portals move, get renamed, and change their access rules. Every guide is verified against its official sources at publication, and we re-check external links on a rolling basis afterward. When a court launches a new records system or retires an old one, we update the affected pages rather than leave stale instructions in place.

Reader reports are part of this cycle. Broken-link reports and correction requests are reviewed as they come in and prioritized ahead of routine updates.

Corrections

When we get something wrong, we fix the page. If you spot an error anywhere on the site, from a dead link to a misstated rule, please tell us through the contact page. A useful report includes the page URL, what you believe is wrong, and if possible the official source that shows the correct information. Corrections that affect the substance of a guide are made on the page itself, not buried elsewhere.

This policy covers every page linked from the Legal Journal homepage, including the state-by-state directories and the long-form research guides.