Contact

What to put in the first message

Four things make the difference between a reply that helps and a reply that asks you five questions.

• The exact address of what you found. The full web address, copied from the browser bar, not a description of the page and not the name of the site. A description sends anyone looking to the wrong place.
• When you found it, and whether you know roughly when it was published or posted. Recent and old are different problems.
• Whether you have saved a copy. A screenshot showing the address bar and the date, a saved PDF, an archived capture. If you have not, do that today rather than after you write — a page you never captured is one you cannot show anybody later.
• What you have already tried, including anything you have been told or quoted by somebody else. If a company has given you a price, say so and say what they promised. That is often the most useful line in the message.

One more sentence is worth adding: what you are actually afraid will happen. A job, a hiring check, a family situation. The right first step is different depending on the answer.

A conflict check comes first

Before any substantive conversation, there is a conflict check — making sure I am not already involved with, or adverse to, somebody on the other side of your situation. It is quick, and it is the reason to keep the first message general.

So describe the parties in ordinary terms rather than sending everything you have. Do not send privileged or confidential material, and do not send case material, through a web form. The form on this page posts nothing to this website — it opens a pre-filled message in your own mail application, which you can read and edit before sending — but a form is still not the place for anything sensitive, and email is not a secure channel either.

If you are already working with an attorney, say so at the start. It changes what should be discussed and with whom.

What happens next

You get a straight answer about what you are looking at: whether the kind of thing you found has a published route, who decides it, and whether an assessment is worth doing in your situation.

Sometimes that answer is short and it costs nothing. File this free request, ignore that offer, do not pay for the other, let it age. If what you found is a court record, no service removes it, and you should hear that in the first reply rather than in the fourth invoice.

Nothing here is a promise about an outcome, and reading or writing to this site does not create an engagement. Nothing starts until it is agreed in writing.

Or write directly: [email protected]