I agree with Eva.  Why should I or any abstractor join an organization that will just be another expense and no real benefits.  And I too have caught another abstractor going through my briefcase at the courthouse.  I've had abstractor look at the caller ID at the courthouse to see who was calling me out there.  You will never get abstractors who work together locally to help each other out.  They are too afraid their clients will be "stolen".  Just look at this site.  There are thousands of abstractors out there, but only a handful who will share anything on this site.  The rest are afraid you will "steal" their clients.  The local abstractors here will pretend to be you friend until they find out who your clients are, then they call your clients, next thing you know, you have no clients left.  I have had clients tell me another (pretended to be my friend) abstractor called them for work and mentioned me by name, and said they would be beat my fee.  And as I've said before, it's not the quality of the work they're looking for, it's who's cheaper and then who's faster.

 I do title searches online and at the courthouse.  And to prove my point, I did a current owner search my way, search the records and write up on a form with copies and the order attached, scanned all pages, and emailed to the client.  It took 45 minutes.  Then I did the same search their way; search the records, take notes, log in to their system, type all the order information, type the search on their site, scan the copies, load the copies to their site, proof read for errors, attach billing, click send.  You would think since I already did this search immediately to prior this, that it would go quicker because I already knew what I was going to find, however, their way took 1 hour and 35 minutes. That's an additional 50 minutes for those counting.  So in the time I did one their way, I could have done 2 my way.

And as far as getting other clients who don't want cheap and inaccurate searches, well I've tried.  I guess title companies are going with abstracting companies, and the lone abstractor is a dinosaur. Like I said, I'm extremely frustrated.  I'm burned out.  I'm so burned out.  Right now I don't have enough work, but I'm so burned out I don't even care.  I thought the holiday time off would refresh me, but it hasn't.  I don't know if I want to stay in this industry any longer.