I think there is a place for disclaimers. I don't use a general disclaimer but I believe they are appropriate and necessary for many situations. Especially when it serves to report local anomalies or clarify expectations.

For example:

• When the client asks you to update someone elses work. We use a disclaimer stating that the search only covered a specific time period and a specific name. We are currently doing several of these as our client has picked up the work of a company that has gone out of business - thus explaining why we didn't do the original report.
• When the county records have known errors. Last summer, one of my counties made a switch from one computer system to another. In the process six months worth of records disssapeared from the index. The documents were still in the books, but there was no way to find them. I discovered the error and put a disclamer on all my reports for that county until the county resolved the issue.
• When a search request is beyond the scope of practicality. Many counties in Texas do not index assignments by borrower name. Legal descriptions are not indexed and in some computer indexes do not even appear in the index. This can make it impractical to accurately track a chain of assignments, unless the client is willing to pay the abstractor for a hand examination of thousands of documents.
• When your source uses a disclaimer. While I've never found a county to post a disclaimer and I only work directly from the county records, most online databases have a disclaimer. I think it would be reckless to NOT use a disclaimer that restates any disclaimer of your source. No one can be more accurate than their source.
• When your client requests a partial search. We've had clients request searches that leave out judgements, tax liens and other involuntary liens. In these cases we will either report them anyway or place a disclaimer on the report re-stating the vendors request.

These are just a few examples where a disclaimer serves to inform our clients of local situations in the county records that can affect accuracy and restates our obligations.  We carry a million dollars in insurance but it is not intended to protect us against the errors of others. In my view, a disclaimer that reports local anomylies or clarifies search results does, in fact, reflect pride in one's own work and should be part of any report where anomalies are found.