When making a decision on hiring a new employee, most people focus on the potential hire’s criminal background, educational credentials and work experience. A savvy employer will have taken the steps necessary to conduct a background check in order to verify all of these areas. However, what most employers forget about is the area of civil litigation.

Conducting a civil litigation check is perhaps the most informative form of gathering valuable pre-employment history. Unlike a criminal history check, which only checks for actions in violation of a jurisdiction’s criminal code, a civil litigation check provides you with a wide-array of relevant information. For example, civil litigation involves such diverse legal actions as torts, workers compensation, employment discrimination, bankruptcy, credit/debtor law, property, real estate and contracts, just to name a few. Understanding a potential hire’s involvement with any of these topics can prove to be invaluable to your business interests.

For instance, if an employee has a substantial amount of civil litigation involvement, this could say a lot about what kind of employee they will be. On one hand, regular litigation equates to less time on the job. Further, certain types of civil litigation actions could mean red flags for you as an employer. Was the individual involved in many personal injury claims? If so, do any of the injuries sustained affect the potential hire’s ability to perform the job you need done? Has the individual filed multiple workers’ compensation claims against former employers? If so, chances are you too may soon face a workers’ compensation claim. What about civil litigation actions involving uncollected debt owed by the individual? If there are outstanding judgments on the potential hire, your business’ payroll department will be stuck with the extra burden of complying with a wage garnishment action. More so, if the potential hire is applying for a financial related business, do you really want them to be in charge of your company’s finances when they are can’t even manage their own personal finances?

The information and benefits available from a civil litigation check are endless. Knowing a person’s education, criminal background and work experience is great, but it only gives you a fraction of the picture. The rest of the picture can only be seen with a civil litigation check. For this reason, civil litigation checks should be a regular part of your pre-employment screening process.

A civil litigation check is best done through a professional background check company. Often times you can use a comprehensive service that will take care of all of your pre-employment screening needs, including civil litigation checks. To perform a civil litigation check, you simply enter the individual’s name, social security number, address and date of birth. The civil litigation check will then search court records maintained in numerous databases. After the search is complete, you will be provided with a comprehensive report of the job applicant’s entire civil litigation history. With this information in hand, you can make a completely informed hiring decision.