Company Legal Reputation Research

Company Legal & Reputation Research

Overview

Step-by-step workflow for researching any company's legal exposure, court records, liens, regulatory actions, sanctions, and public reputation signals using only free public sources. No API keys required. Produces a structured risk summary table with confidence levels and a list of manual checks still needed.

Use this skill when you need to:

• Vet a potential vendor, partner, or acquisition target
• Check a company before signing a contract
• Research a competitor's legal history
• Perform pre-investment due diligence on a small/mid-size private company
• Confirm a company has no outstanding debarment, exclusions, or sanctions

Prerequisites

No installations required. Uses web search and URL reading tools only.

Required tools (any of the following work):

• web_search — for broad public record queries
• read_url / fetch_url — for reading public court and sanctions portals

Quick Start

Research the legal and reputation history of [COMPANY NAME], based in [STATE].
Use the company-legal-reputation-research skill.

The agent will run all 7 steps and return a risk summary table plus a list of manual portal checks.

API Reference — The 7 Steps

Step 1 — Entity Identity Confirmation

Confirm legal name, state of incorporation, and any prior names (critical — companies rename).

web_search: "[COMPANY]" site:sos.[state].gov OR registered agent OR articles of organization
web_search: "[COMPANY]" formerly known as OR previously named OR name change

Step 2 — Federal Court Records (automated)

Check all free federal court indexes.

web_search: "[COMPANY]" site:courtlistener.com
web_search: "[COMPANY]" site:pacermonitor.com
web_search: "[COMPANY]" federal lawsuit OR bankruptcy OR chapter 11 OR PACER
web_search: "[COMPANY]" site:justia.com
web_search: "[COMPANY]" site:unicourt.com

Step 3 — State Court Records

Automated web search, plus manual portal check for the company's home state.

web_search: "[COMPANY]" "[STATE]" district court lawsuit judgment lien civil
web_search: "[COMPANY]" site:unicourt.com "[STATE]"

Manual check (required — state portals block automation):

• Minnesota: https://publicaccess.courts.state.mn.us/CaseSearch
• All states: search unicourt.com by party name for state court records

Step 4 — Liens and UCC Filings

web_search: "[COMPANY]" UCC lien filing OR tax lien OR judgment lien "[STATE]"
web_search: "[COMPANY]" IRS lien OR federal tax lien

Manual check: State Secretary of State UCC/lien portal (search debtor name).

Step 5 — Regulatory, Licensing, and Labor Actions

web_search: "[COMPANY]" regulatory action OR license suspension OR cease and desist OR fine OR penalty
web_search: "[COMPANY]" OSHA violation OR labor violation OR wage claim OR EEOC
web_search: "[COMPANY]" contractor license violation OR unlicensed
web_search: "[COMPANY]" BBB complaint OR BBB rating

State Contractor / Occupational Licensing — Bulk CSV Method

Many state licensing boards publish their entire licensee database as a downloadable CSV, which is far more reliable than scraping individual search UIs. Download the CSV, then grep or search it locally.

Minnesota (DLI) example:

# Electrical contractors
curl -o mn_electrical.csv "https://secure.doli.state.mn.us/ccld/data/MNDLILicRegCertExport_Electrical.csv"
grep -i "brogav\|berglund" mn_electrical.csv

# Construction/general contractor registrations
curl -o mn_contractor.csv "https://secure.doli.state.mn.us/ccld/data/MNDLILicRegCertExport_Contractor_Registrations.csv"
grep -i "brogav\|berglund" mn_contractor.csv

Why this matters: If a company self-describes as a contractor (BBB, The Blue Book, job postings say "install" or "turnkey") but has no license in the state database, that is a concrete compliance risk to document.

Pattern for other states:

web_search: "[STATE] [license type] licensee database CSV download"
web_search: "[STATE] department of labor contractor license bulk export"

Most state boards make the full CSV available for public download. Search for "bulk export" or "data download" in the board's website footer or open data portal.

Step 6 — Sanctions, Debarment, and Federal Registration

fetch_url: https://www.opensanctions.org/search/?q=[COMPANY]&dataset=us_sam_exclusions
web_search: "[COMPANY]" OFAC sanctions OR debarment OR excluded parties OR SAM.gov excluded

OpenSanctions mirrors SAM.gov exclusions and is bot-accessible. Zero results = not excluded.

Federal Registration (SAM.gov / UEI)

If the company sells to or is registered with the federal government, SAM.gov contains:

• UEI (Unique Entity ID), CAGE code
• Self-reported NAICS codes and revenue size band
• Active/inactive status, registration expiry
• Any exclusions

web_search: "[COMPANY]" UEI OR CAGE OR SAM.gov OR "unique entity"
web_search: "[COMPANY]" DUNS number

To retrieve full SAM.gov entity data programmatically: GET https://api.sam.gov/entity-information/v3/entities?ueiSAM=[UEI]&api_key=[KEY]. Requires a free SAM.gov API key.

WBENC / Women-Owned Business Certification

WBENC certification is annual. If the company claims WBENC or WOSB status, verify the current year:

• Renewal dates are published on WBENC.org certificate PDFs.
• The WBENC member directory is searchable at wbenc.org/search.
• An expired WBENC cert is a material compliance risk for companies selling into Fortune 500 supplier-diversity programs.

fetch_url: https://www.wbenc.org/search-results/?q=[COMPANY]
web_search: "[COMPANY]" WBENC certified OR WBENC renewal OR "women-owned" cert

Note: The WBENC member portal blocks bots. The search page may return results, but cert expiry details require manual login to the business's WBENC account or the client company's supplier portal.

Step 7 — Reputation Signals

web_search: "[COMPANY]" review OR complaint OR fraud OR scam OR controversy, last 2 years
web_search: "[COMPANY]" glassdoor OR indeed review OR employee complaint
web_search: site:reddit.com "[COMPANY]"
web_search: "[COMPANY]" negative news -press release -linkedin

Common Patterns

Risk Summary Table (always output this)

Then produce:

• Red flags — any confirmed adverse findings
• Manual checks still needed — portals that block automation
• Overall risk rating: Low / Moderate / High + one-line rationale

Prior Name Check (critical for small companies)

Small businesses frequently rename. Always search both the current name and any prior legal names. Example: "BROGAV Solutions LLC" was previously "Hope-filled Hearts LLC" — court records from 2021-2022 would appear under the old name.

web_search: "[PRIOR NAME]" lawsuit OR court OR judgment OR lien

Pitfalls

• State court portals block bots — MCRO (MN), most state trial court systems. Flag these as "manual check needed" and provide the direct URL; do not skip them.
• BBB and Glassdoor block automated access — return Forbidden. Note that the profile exists (or doesn't) and provide the URL for manual review.
• SAM.gov search UI returns CSS/HTML — use OpenSanctions instead: opensanctions.org/search/?q=[COMPANY]&dataset=us_sam_exclusions. Zero results = not excluded.
• Published federal opinions ≠ all federal cases — CourtListener/Justia only index published opinions. An unpublished or pending case won't appear. PACER (login required) is the only complete source.
• Absence of hits ≠ clean record — always report what was searched and what couldn't be automated. Never say "no litigation found" without qualifying with the sources actually checked.

Combining With Other Skills

• Conversation Review (skills/conversation-review/) — after running this skill, use conversation-review to QA the output for completeness and citation accuracy before sharing with a client.
• Doc Co-Authoring (skills/white-paper-writing/anthropic-doc-coauthoring/) — wrap this skill's output into a formal due diligence memo using the doc co-authoring workflow.
• Content Research Writer (skills/white-paper-writing/composio-content-research-writer/) — combine with this skill for a full company profile (market position + legal/reputation).