And then there are the federal courts. It is possible a prospective employer might want to know if a candidate has ever filed for bankruptcy. If so, that's another court check that needs to be made. There is no realistic way to do a thorough criminal and civil court check in a single state, let alone nationwide. Anyone who claims to be able to do a nationwide court check, in other words, just isn't telling the truth.
Many companies still think a court check is an indispensable part of the hiring process.
As a practical matter, most employers will only check the current county of residence for any record of felony convictions. By doing that, they wrongly believe they are protecting themselves from negligent hiring litigation. And they might be, if they're also carefully checking the candidate's references as well. Court checks need to be seen for exactly what they are, nothing more than a single sentence on a single page of what could be a very long book.