Can a Lawyer Request a Credit Report?

A person's credit report isn't a public document. Rather, the contents of the report, which lay out a person's credit history, are only available to people who have a legitimate business interest in viewing it. This can include a person's creditors, potential employers and landlords. Whether a lawyer can review it would depend on the reasons that the lawyer wished to look at it and whether they constituted a legitimate reason.

Credit Report

A credit report is maintained by a credit reporting bureau, a company that collects information from public records and private creditors about a person's lending habits. This report isn't available to most outside parties. However, the credit reporting bureau shares the report with an individual or a business if the party can present a reason why having access to this report would affect his business.

Legitimate Business Interest

The term "legitimate business interest" isn't well defined. However, this definition does prohibit people from looking at other people's credit reports out of curiosity. A lawyer, therefore, isn't given special access to a person's credit report because he's a member of the legal profession. Rather, he must have a legitimate reason, either for his own business or for a client, to check the report.

Lawyers

There are various scenarios in which a lawyer might be allowed to check a person's report. If a lawyer was preparing to extend a person legal services with the promise that the person would pay him after the services were completed, the lawyer may wish to check the person's credit rating first. This would give the lawyer an idea of whether the person was likely to pay him back or not.

Client

A lawyer might also be allowed to look at a credit report as a means of providing better legal representation to his client. If the client has a legitimate business interest in knowing the contents of the report in a matter with direct relevance to the case for which he hired the lawyer, then the lawyer could legally access the report. For example, if the creditor was bringing a debt case against a debtor, the lawyer would have grounds to look at the debtor's credit report.