Best Practice: Strategies When Searching

CM/ECF searches are not key word searches but require exact text matches.

• Be sure to use appropriate upper and lowercase characters since the search is case sensitive.

• When searching for debtors, the more search clues you provide, the more likely you are to find the exact person you are searching for. For example, if you search for a last name of Grant, CM/ECF may return a list of a hundred parties with that last name. However, if you search for a last name of Grant with a Social Security number of 333-22-1111, CM/ECF will return a single party.

• When searching for creditors, it may be necessary to conduct multiple searches. First, search for the entire creditor name (e.g., World Communications). If that is not successful, you can search for part of the creditor's name (e.g., World Comm or just World). If there are articles in the title such as "A" or "The," you may or may not need to include the article in the search. For example, a search request for The Timely Times may not produce a result. But a search request for Timely Times will be successful. Likewise a search for Timely Times may not produce a result; but a search for The Timely Times will be successful.

• Finally, an unsuccessful search for A. & A. Metals might be successful if you search without punctuation (i.e., A & A Metals). On the other hand, an unsuccessful search for A & A Metals might be successful if you search with punctuation (i.e., A. & A. Metals).