What is a Process Server?
Process Servers are individuals who give legal notice to a party requiring them to respond to a proceeding scheduled to be held before a court, government body, or tribunal. Notice is usually provided by presenting the party in question with court documents such as Summonses, Statements of Claim, Plaintiff’s Claims, etc. Some documents must be served personally, while others may be served upon a person of legal age at the intended party’s residence or place of employment.
What does a process server do?
Process servers are needed to perform various tasks such as filing court papers, retrieving documents, and serving legal documents. Their main job, however, is to deliver or more appropriately, to “serve” legal documents to defendants/respondents or people involved in court cases. Once process servers have served the legal documents, they also have to deliver the evidence that the documents were served – this is called an Affidavit of Service. This document will be commissioned and delivered to the party who required the papers to be served. Important to note, process serving laws may differ from one city to another and process servers are required to serve papers in the correct manner set within that certain area.
Why is process serving important?
The main reason process serving is important is to be sure that rules of service are followed under the Rules of Small Claims Court. Why is this important? If documents are not properly served, the court can rule that service had not been effected in a case involving an individual or business. If the service of a document is deemed improper, there is a possibility of the entire case being thrown out.
Why Use a Process Server?
- You do not have to be a lawyer to use a process server.
- The rules for serving of Court documents are complicated.
- Law Firms use process servers to serve Small Claims Court documents because they know the job will get done properly.
- You may not want to confront the person that you are suing in court.
- You may consider giving the document to a friend to serve but there is a possibility that your friend may get injured while serving the document.
- The person that you are suing may hide
- You may feel that it is too dangerous for you to personally serve the person that you are suing. It is dangerous to serve women who frequently falsely make threatening or harassing complaints.
- You may not be able to find the person(s) that you want to serve. Process servers have many ways to find them.
- Process servers know the rules governing service of legal documents.
- Legal documents must be served properly otherwise they may not be deemed valid resulting in potential problems, even dismissal, of the lawsuit.
- You may have several defendants that have to be served in a specific sequence. If they are not served properly then one could notify the other(s) who might then hide. As a result, you might lose the lawsuit in the Courts or have a weaker case.
- There are also rules governing when (times, days) legal documents can and can not be served in order to serve documents properly.
- There may be situations where the plaintiff knows where the defendant is but the defendant may be hard to access such as in an Apartment building or a Condominium. Process servers can overcome that problem.
- If you attempt to serve someone at home and the person will not open the door for you then it is not considered proper service
Use Process Servers to Serve Court Documents:
- Statement of Claim
- Service of all originating documents
- Subpoenas
- Judgments
- Termination of Tenancy forms
- Summons and Complaints
- Writs of Garnishment
- Small Claims
- Motion Records
- Affidavits
- Notice of Application
- Application Records
- Application (Petition) for Divorce
- Summons to Witness
- Garnishment
- Notice of Contempt
- Plaintiff's Claim
What Process Servers Can Do for You
- Subpoena Service
- Collection Research
- Corporate Searches
- Private Investigations
- Personal Property Searches (UCC Search Service)
- Daily Court Filings
- Business Registrations
- Courthouse Record Research
- Drivers Licence Searches
- Motor Vehicle Searches
At Joston Legal Services we also have a direct link to skip tracers in case the instance arises whereby a person or business needs to be located.