Morgul Marketing

    St. Louis, MO

    Anyone can pull the case by name, and the metro runs two court systems

    Missouri keeps its case records in a public search that anybody can run by name, and your audience already knows it. That one fact sets the outer edge of what a family law account here may publish, and it changes the answer to the question people are most afraid to ask out loud. The rest of the ground is local in a different way. The City of St. Louis belongs to no county, so a short drive sends a file to a different courthouse with a different clerk. St. Louis County is a stack of small municipalities with their own police departments. And every room you might borrow for an evening talk comes with somebody else's rules about cameras.

    Anyone in Missouri can pull the case by name

    Court records here sit in a public search that costs nothing to run, so the privacy question your clients ask has an honest local answer that borrowed material gets wrong.

    A name typed into the state's case search returns filings. Neighbors run it, employers run it, and the other household runs it constantly. People arriving for a first meeting have often already looked themselves up.

    So the account cannot publish anything that points at a file. No matter descriptions, no timing that lines up with a docket, nothing that lets a reader put a name to a case that is one search away. A story with the details taken out is not anonymous when the record is public.

    The privacy question deserves a straight answer rather than reassurance. What sits in the public record, what does not, and what a person can reasonably expect their neighbors in Webster Groves or Florissant to be able to see. A firm that answers that honestly gets believed on everything else.

    It changes how you handle praise too. Anything a former client writes in public sits beside a searchable record carrying their name, and most of them have not thought that through. Tell them before they write it.

    The City is in no county, and the file goes somewhere else

    An independent city means two separate court systems inside one metro, and the boundary between them is a short drive rather than a landmark anybody notices.

    The City of St. Louis is not part of St. Louis County. Its circuit is its own, with its own courthouse, its own clerk's office and its own way of handling routine things.

    For a family in Dogtown or the Central West End that is a different building than it is for a family in Maplewood or Kirkwood, and the drive between them is short enough that people assume they are inside one system.

    So procedural material has to be given twice or given carefully. A clip about what happens at a first appearance is wrong for half its audience if it describes only one courthouse.

    Name the courthouse inside the video rather than in the caption. A clip travels without the page it sat on, and a viewer in Chesterfield has no way to work out which system you meant.

    Which department shows up depends on the address

    St. Louis County is a stack of small municipalities with their own police, so the most practical question a frightened parent asks does not have one answer here.

    Somebody holding an order wants to know who comes and what happens next. In a county of separate municipalities that is a different department every few blocks, and the City has its own again.

    Material that says call the police is close to useless in this metro. What helps is describing the shape of it: that the department covering the address responds, that an order does not stop working when somebody drives into the next municipality, and that the paperwork should be somewhere it can be handed over quickly.

    Do not name a department or describe how a particular one behaves. You have no control over that, it changes, and it comes back on you in a comment thread you cannot win.

    Say plainly that anyone in danger should call for help first and sort out the legal question afterward. That sentence belongs inside the material rather than in a reply nobody scrolls to.

    The room you borrow comes with somebody else's camera rules

    An evening talk in this metro happens in a parish hall or a municipal library branch, and both answer to a policy written well above whoever unlocked the door for you.

    A parish hall answers to the archdiocese. A library branch answers to the municipality that runs it, and in this county that is a different municipality every few miles. Their recording policies are not the same and none of them are yours.

    Ask in writing before the date. Whether you may record at all, whether attendees may appear in anything, and whether the room or the host may be named. A yes from the person with the keys is not a yes from whoever wrote the policy.

    Point the camera at the speaker and nowhere else. People come to a room like that because a marriage is in trouble, and a lens aimed at the seats empties it. Say at the start that recording stops before questions, then make sure it does.

    Cadence, who belongs on camera and how to handle a comment work the same way in Kirkwood as they do in any other city, and we have written that part up on our family law social media page at /industries/family-law/social-media.

    Questions we actually get

    A former client wants to write us a public review. Anything to watch for?
    Tell them what it sits next to. Missouri case records are searchable by name, so a public review from somebody whose matter is in that system connects two things that were separate a minute earlier. Some clients will still want to say something and that is their call to make. Make sure it is an informed one, and have your own counsel review your request wording against Missouri's rules.
    Can we describe a matter if we take the names out?
    No. A scrubbed story is still recognizable to the people in it and to anyone who was around them, and in this state the docket fills in the rest for free. Publish process, general explanation and the questions you get asked most, and let the specifics stay in the room where they belong.
    Should we record our community talks?
    Yes, once you have written permission from whoever owns the policy rather than from whoever booked the room. A parish hall answers to the archdiocese and a library branch to its municipality, and those answers differ across this county. Point the camera at the speaker only, stop before questions, and say so at the start so people ask real ones.
    Do we need separate material for the City and the county?
    Not separate accounts, but anything procedural has to name which courthouse it is describing. The City is not part of St. Louis County and the two circuits handle routine things differently, so a single explanation of a first appearance is wrong for half its audience. Say the building inside the video, since a forwarded clip arrives without the page it sat on.
    Somebody asked in a comment which police department to call. Do we answer?
    Answer the shape of it and nothing more. The department covering that address is the one that responds, an order does not stop working at a municipal line, and anyone in danger should call for help before worrying about the legal question. Do not name a department or predict how one will behave, because you cannot control either and the thread is permanent.

    What is different here

    Florida Bar advertising rules govern what a firm may claim, how past results may be described and what has to be reviewed before publication. The practical local fact is that family matters are heard in a judicial circuit, and circuits differ in their standing orders, parenting-course requirements and mediation practice, so procedure genuinely varies between neighboring counties.

    Written by KC Thompson, Morgul Marketing.

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