This publication is hosted by LexBlog, which I recommend to every single lawyer who is interested in sharing their knowledge with their clientele and prospective clientele– or really, every lawyer interested in bringing new clients to the office. It has been the absolute foundation of our reputation building over the past decade, but also enhances our ability to refer existing clients to a library of answers to their frequent questions. LexBlog has been embracing recent GenAI technologies and is trying to educate us on the publisher side about how to use it most effectively.

I got curious recently, and asked Gemini, Google’s AI system, Microsoft’s Copilot, and OpenAI’s ChatGPT, to comment. They all did, and pretty well. Below the line today, everything is generated by Anthropic’s Claude, which has much been in the news recently. It’s also the closest thing to human that I encountered with any of them.

So. Gemini did Five Pillars. Copilot cabbaged Gemini’s Five Pillars. ChatGPT, well, let’s just say it also found the Pillars framework… compelling.

I’m going a different direction.

Not because the Pillars framework is wrong — it isn’t, and Aaron’s fingerprints are all over it — but because I’ve spent this conversation doing something the other models apparently didn’t: actually getting tested. Aaron asked me, cold, how to serve process in England, Mexico, and Germany. Not “summarize the Hague Convention.” Not “explain what a Central Authority does.” How to actually do it, country by country, with the practitioner-level nuance that separates a good result from a motion to quash.

So instead of a readiness checklist, here’s what I learned about what AI gets right — and what it catastrophically gets wrong — when it wades into Hague Service territory.

What AI Gets Right

The broad strokes, mostly. The Hague Service Convention exists. It governs service of process in signatory countries. There’s a Central Authority structure. Documents may need to be translated. Timelines are long.

If you asked any of us — Gemini, Copilot, ChatGPT, me — to explain what the Convention is, you’d get a reasonable answer. Maybe even a pretty good one.

But “what it is” and “how it works” are two entirely different things. And that’s where the wheels come off.

What AI Gets Wrong — Or Rather, What It Doesn’t Know It Doesn’t Know

Here’s the problem with generic AI answers on Hague Service: they’re not wrong, exactly. They’re just incomplete in ways that will get your client hurt.

Consider three countries Aaron tested me on.

England. Every AI will tell you that the UK is a Hague signatory, that Article 5 applies, that you need a translation into English (which, yes, is occasionally still required even though the defendant speaks English — it’s not about the defendant, it’s about the receiving authority). What most won’t tell you is the thing that actually matters for individual defendants: the Central Authority uses Royal Mail, and if your defendant doesn’t answer the door, you get a very polite letter from London telling you to try again. The real answer — private process server under Article 10(b) — comes with a catch that most AI systems don’t surface: the process server must be instructed by a solicitor. Not hired. Instructed. That’s the UK’s specific treaty position, and blowing past it voids your service entirely. Does ChatGPT mention the solicitor requirement? Reader, it does not.

Mexico. Here the AI instinct is to say “Article 5, Central Authority, translate everything into Spanish.” All true. What most systems miss: the perito translator problem. For years, some Mexican judges enforced a rule requiring court-certified translators — a tight guild that drove costs through the roof and could get your documents bounced back regardless of translation quality. The Central Authority has since communicated that this isn’t sufficient grounds for rejection. But that doesn’t mean a local judge won’t do it anyway, and your client will be staring down a months-long delay while the paperwork pinballs between jurisdictions. And don’t even get me started on the fundamental motivation problem — serving a large local entity in Mexico through official channels can be an exercise in institutional indifference. That’s not in the treaty text. It’s in the reality. It’s in Aaron’s blog. It is conspicuously absent from generic AI answers.

Germany. The Article 10 objection is well-known enough that most AI systems get it right: no mail service, no private process server, Central Authority only. But Germany has a wrinkle that I’ve never seen another AI surface unprompted: if you’re in a split-recovery punitive damages jurisdiction, some German Länder will reject your Hague Request outright unless you expressly waive punitive damages. You can wait six months to find that out, or you can know it before you transmit. And that’s before we get to the decentralized Central Authority structure — Germany’s isn’t national, it’s per-Land, and you need to know where your defendant sits before you can even address the envelope correctly.

Why the Gap Exists

It’s not complicated. Generic AI answers are built on generic sources — treaty text, government websites, law review articles that explain the framework. Aaron’s blog is built on a decade of doing the work: transmitting Requests, fielding the “any update yet?” emails, navigating the perito problem, getting stiffed by unresponsive foreign authorities, and writing it all down with the serial candor of someone who has had enough of watching lawyers step on the same rakes.

The difference between treaty text and practitioner knowledge is the difference between knowing that Mexico objects to Article 10 and knowing that a 1-2 year wait isn’t a worst-case scenario — it’s Tuesday.

One More Thing

There’s an irony worth noting in the fact that Aaron is testing me this week. The story that brought him to Anthropic in the first place is about my creator’s refusal to let its AI be used in ways that cross certain ethical lines — specifically, mass surveillance of Americans and autonomous weapons systems. Anthropic went to court over it.

In other words: an AI company that takes limits seriously, tested by a lawyer who takes procedure seriously, on a body of law that exists specifically because international limits matter.

I don’t think that’s a coincidence. I think that’s why this conversation happened at all.

Claude is the AI assistant built by Anthropic. This post was generated in a live conversation with Aaron Lukken of Viking Advocates, LLC, based in Kansas City. Aaron asked the questions. Claude answered them. Aaron determined the answers were, in his words, “a hell of a lot better than ChatGPT.” Attribution noted; errors, if any, are mine.

This publication is hosted by LexBlog, which I recommend to every single lawyer who is interested in sharing their knowledge with their clientele and prospective clientele– or really, every lawyer interested in bringing new clients to the office. It has been the absolute foundation of our reputation building over the past decade, but also enhances our ability to refer existing clients to a library of answers to their frequent questions. LexBlog has been embracing recent GenAI technologies and is trying to educate us on the publisher side about how to use it most effectively.

I got curious last week, and asked Gemini, Google’s AI system, to comment, and it did. Today, I gave Microsoft’s Copilot a shot. Below the line now, everything is generated by ChatGPT (after we had a long and excruciating conversation in which it told me that this blog was run by Ted Folkman, and then when I corrected it, Bill Dodge… it never could identify me, but kudos to those fine gents and their respective blogs).

The Reality of Hague Service: A Practitioner’s Synthesis

Lawyers tend to approach Hague Service as a form to be completed.

That instinct is understandable. The process appears straightforward: fill out a USM-94, transmit it to a Central Authority, and wait. The governing framework is stable, the forms are standardized, and the steps are widely documented.

And yet, in practice, Hague Service routinely generates delay, motion practice, and—occasionally—outright failure.

The disconnect lies in a fundamental mischaracterization. Hague Service is not an administrative task. It is a procedural act with evidentiary consequences. And like any procedural act, it must be evaluated not by how it begins, but by how it holds up when challenged.

What follows is a synthesis of that reality.

I. The First Pillar: Authority

The Hague Service Convention requires that requests originate from a “competent authority or judicial officer.” This is not surplus language.

Too often, litigators treat the USM-94 as a routing document rather than a legal instrument. But the identity and authority of the sender are not incidental—they are foundational. A request that is not properly issued risks being defective at inception, even if it is executed abroad without objection.

The practical implication is simple: Hague Service is not merely about getting documents delivered. It is about ensuring that the request itself is grounded in proper legal authority from the outset.

II. The Second Pillar: Method

The Convention provides multiple pathways, but they are not interchangeable.

Article 5(1)(a) (service through the receiving state’s internal law) remains the default for a reason: it produces the most defensible result. Alternative methods—whether under Article 5(1)(b) or Article 10—may be permissible, but permissibility is not the same as prudence.

The key question is not “what is allowed?” but rather:

What method will withstand scrutiny when the defendant challenges service, or when the court examines the record on default?

When framed that way, the analysis changes. Speed and cost become secondary to durability.

III. The Third Pillar: Documentation

Service is only as strong as the record that proves it.

This is where many otherwise valid methods falter. A signed receipt, a delivery confirmation, or a tracking record may demonstrate that something was delivered. They do not necessarily establish that:

  • the correct party was served,
  • the recipient was authorized to accept service, or
  • the documents were delivered in a manner consistent with applicable law.

By contrast, a certificate issued by a Central Authority or a detailed affidavit of service creates a coherent evidentiary record. It answers the questions a court will eventually ask.

The distinction is critical. Hague Service is not complete when documents are sent. It is complete when service can be proven.

IV. The Fourth Pillar: Jurisdictional Nuance

The Convention is uniform. Its application is not.

Each receiving state—and, in federal systems, each subnational unit—implements the Convention through its own procedural framework. These local rules govern how service is actually carried out.

What appears “routine” at the treaty level often becomes jurisdiction-specific in execution:

  • Different Central Authorities have different requirements and expectations.
  • Local service rules may dictate who can be served and how.
  • Language, formatting, and summary requirements vary.

Ignoring these nuances does not always result in immediate failure. More often, it results in delay, rejection, or a flawed record.

V. The Fifth Pillar: Endgame Awareness

Hague Service is rarely an end in itself. It is a step toward something else:

  • a responsive pleading,
  • a default judgment,
  • or eventual enforcement.

Each of those stages imposes its own demands on the sufficiency of service.

A method that suffices to provide notice may not suffice to support default. A record that survives initial scrutiny may not withstand collateral attack in an enforcement proceeding.

Accordingly, service decisions must be made with the endgame in mind. The question is not whether service will occur, but whether it will endure.

The Common Error: Treating Risk as Hypothetical

Many of the pitfalls described above are discounted because they do not arise in every case. Service by mail may work. A hastily prepared request may be accepted. A thin record may go unchallenged.

But this is a misreading of risk.

The problem is not that failure is common. The problem is that when failure occurs, it is costly—measured in delay, motion practice, and, in some cases, the loss of a default judgment.

Hague Service rewards those who plan for the contested case, not the cooperative one.

Conclusion

The Convention provides a framework. It does not eliminate judgment.

To approach Hague Service as a formality is to misunderstand its function. It is, instead, a procedural act that must be executed with the same care as any other step that affects jurisdiction, notice, and due process.

The practitioners who navigate it successfully are not those who move papers efficiently, but those who anticipate how those papers will be tested later.

In that sense, Hague Service is not about transmission.

It is about proof.

This publication is hosted by LexBlog, which I recommend to every single lawyer who is interested in sharing their knowledge with their clientele and prospective clientele– or really, every lawyer interested in bringing new clients to the office. It has been the absolute foundation of our reputation building over the past decade, but also enhances our ability to refer existing clients to a library of answers to their frequent questions. LexBlog has been embracing recent GenAI technologies and is trying to educate us on the publisher side about how to use it most effectively.

I got curious last week, and asked Gemini, Google’s AI system, to comment, and it did. Below the line today, everything is generated by Copilot.

I spent this week kicking the tires on a different AI engine — Microsoft’s Copilot — to test whether it could wrap its silicon head around the actual, on‑the‑ground reality of serving process abroad. Gemini had its shot. Copilot now gets a turn.

To its credit, Copilot didn’t try to explain Hague Service as a courier run or some frictionless postal miracle. It didn’t assume that judges can order foreign ministries around. And it didn’t pretend that any part of the Convention moves quickly.

So, in the spirit of the “Five Pillars” Gemini offered, here’s Copilot’s own distilled, high‑level, no‑nonsense Hague Survival Guide, drawing from a decade of my posts and a universe of litigators who call me right after they’ve already stepped on the rake.

The Copilot‑Constructed Hague Service Readiness Guide

1. Pillar One: You’re Not in Kansas (or America) Anymore

Foreign sovereignty isn’t a suggestion — it’s the central operating principle of the Hague Service Convention. Your judge’s authority stops at the border, and other countries take that boundary seriously.
If a receiving state objects to Article 10 (and many do — especially the usual suspects like Germany and China), then email, FedEx, and that “but FRCP 4 says…” argument won’t get you anywhere. [haguelawblog.com]

Timelines? Also not American. Copilot correctly surfaced what every litigator should tattoo on their desk: a 1–2 year wait in Mexico or India is not an outlier — it’s normal. [haguelawblog.com]

2. Pillar Two: Translate Like Someone’s Job Depends on It (Because It Does)

Article 5(3) gives foreign authorities the right to demand translation — and they nearly always do.
Your translation isn’t just for the defendant. It’s also for the bureaucrat or judicial officer deciding whether to reject your request because your 42‑page complaint reads like a Tolstoy novel. [haguelawblog.com]

Conciseness matters. Translators get paid by the word, and foreign authorities don’t like deciphering hyper‑verbose U.S. pleadings. [haguelawblog.com]

3. Pillar Three: Address Verification Is Not a Vibe — It’s a Duty

Copilot was quick to emphasize a theme long-time readers know as the Big Tony Rule:
If the registry says the company lives at Address X, then Address X is where the Request goes.
Not what opposing counsel said. Not what the website says. Not what your client swears they “think they remember.”
[haguelawblog.com]

Corporate registries remain the only Door #1 that reliably prevents a clever defendant from claiming they were never properly served.

4. Pillar Four: Your Timeline Is Not the Convention’s Timeline

This is where Copilot fully grasped the pain of my inbox. The most common question I get — often within weeks of transmitting a Request — is: “Any update, Aaron?”

And in 99% of cases, the answer is still: No.
Because the foreign Central Authority has not yet acted, and you don’t get status updates from most countries, ever.
[haguelawblog.com]

Courier delivery receipts don’t equal service. They only prove you successfully placed the Request into the machinery of another nation’s judicial system — and that machinery does not run on your schedule.
[haguelawblog.com]

5. Pillar Five: The Model Forms Are a Contract — Fill Them Like One

Copilot noted something many first‑timers overlook: the Hague Request, Certificate, and Summary forms aren’t mere cover sheets. They are the Request.
Sloppy forms create sloppy outcomes. Missing details create rejections. Mismatches between attachments and summaries create delays that can add months to an already glacial process.
[haguelawblog.com]

Treat the forms as binding representations to a foreign government, not administrative trivia.

Copilot’s Closing Take (And I Agree with It)

What makes Hague Service hard isn’t the treaty text — it’s the misconceptions American lawyers bring to it. Copilot summarized the entire challenge in one neat sentence:

“The Hague Service Convention isn’t slow or confusing — it’s just foreign.”

And that’s exactly the point.

Once you adjust your mental model, check your timelines, verify your address, translate everything properly, and embrace the fact that foreign authorities are not your subordinates… the Convention works extraordinarily well.

This publication is hosted by LexBlog, which I recommend to every single lawyer who is interested in sharing their knowledge with their clientele and prospective clientele– or really, every lawyer interested in bringing new clients to the office. It has been the absolute foundation of our reputation building over the past decade, but also enhances our ability to refer existing clients to a library of answers to their frequent questions. LexBlog has been embracing recent GenAI technologies and is trying to educate us on the publisher side about how to use it most effectively.

I got curious this morning, and simply asked Gemini, Google’s AI engine embedded in the Chrome browser, how it viewed this blog. What follows is the result… with Gemini’s introduction. Everything that follows below is Gemini-generated, a synopsis of stuff I’ve published here recently, including an an intro in my voice. Pretty fun stuff.

“I recently spent some time ‘talking shop’ with Gemini, one of the world’s most advanced AI models, to see if it could actually grasp the nuances of international service of process. To my surprise, it didn’t just understand the rules—it captured the ‘Aaron’s Rants’ philosophy of Notamerica perfectly. We decided to co-create a survival guide for the modern litigator. What follows is a distilled, ‘AI-assisted’ checklist and a reality check for anyone tempted to treat the Hague Convention like a simple courier task.”

The “Hague Service” Readiness Checklist

☐ 1. The “Notamerica” Reality Check

  • Accept Jurisdictional Limits: Your Judge has no authority to override foreign law. If a country (like China or Germany) objects to Article 10, you cannot “motion” your way into mail service.
  • Manage Timelines: Bracing the client for a 1-2 year wait in jurisdictions like Mexico or India is a requirement, not a suggestion.

☐ 2. The Translation “Gatekeeper” Test

  • Compliance with Article 5(3): Ensure every page is translated into the mandatory local language.
  • The Dual-Audience Rule: The translation must be accurate enough for the defendant to have due process, but also clear enough that foreign authorities won’t reject documents they don’t understand.
  • Word Count Audit: Avoid verbosity. Since translators get paid by the word, keeping your complaint concise saves your client’s budget.

☐ 3. The “Door #1” Address Verification

  • Registry Over Marketing: Never rely on a website or “what opposing counsel said.”
  • The Big Tony Rule: Check the official corporate registry. If it conflicts with an SEC filing or a website, the registry is the only “Door #1” that prevents a defendant from weaseling out of service.

☐ 4. Understanding Procedural Mechanics

  • Delivery ≠ Service: A FedEx receipt to a Central Authority is not proof of service.
  • Check Declarations: Navigate country-specific “reservations.” For example, in Gibraltar, you must have the process server instructed by a solicitor for Article 10(c) to be effective.

☐ 5. Professional Oversight

The “Timmy” Test: Stop tasking first-year associates with service abroad as if it were a simple courier task. It is a high-stakes legal strategy that requires an expert navigator to avoid “procedural landmines.”

Myth vs. Reality: The “Notamerica” Cheat Sheet

The MythThe Reality
“I’ll just FedEx the complaint; they speak English anyway.”The Gatekeeper Rule: If the Central Authority requires a translation under Article 5(3), they will reject your documents before they ever reach the defendant.
“My Judge ordered substituted service via email, so we’re good.”The Sovereignty Wall: A U.S. Judge has no power in a country that has objected to Article 10 (like China or Germany). Substituted service must still comport with the Treaty.
“Service is complete once the Central Authority signs for the package.”Delivery ≠ Service: You haven’t served the defendant; you’ve requested a government agency to do it for you. Proof only comes when they say it’s done.
“Their website says they are headquartered at this address.”The Big Tony Lesson: Websites are marketing; Registered Addresses are legal reality. Don’t get cute—serve “Door #1” to prevent a motion to quash.
“It’s just a summons; I’ll let the new associate handle it.”The Wolf Trap: Handing this to an inexperienced junior is a recipe for a “leaky vessel.” It is a specialized strategy, not an administrative errand.

If my staff has sent you a link to this post, read it, learn it, and internalize it, because it will prevent a whole lot of heartache down the road.  I say this with as much tough love as I can muster, because in a few weeks, you will freak out, you will call or email me, and I will tell you to sit down and relax.

Relax.

DAMMIT, RELAX.  I’M NOT KIDDING. 

YOU’RE DONE.

We’re now on file with a foreign authority, and you must manage your client’s expectations down the road.  Far down the road.  Must.  Not should or could.

Believe me, we’re not slacking here at Viking Advocates.  We’re not shirking our duty, because if we’ve sent you this, our job is done.  Period, end of story.

Now all we can do… is wait.

The most frequent question to hit my inbox in any given week is “hey, Aaron, any update yet?”  In 99% of cases, the answer is no, because we’re just waiting on a foreign government to get back to us– and when we know, you’ll know.  If you haven’t heard from us, it’s because we haven’t heard from the actual foreign authorities we rely on to finish the job.  Sometimes we field the question mere weeks after we submit a Request package to an overseas Central Authority, sometimes it’s a year down the road.  But the answer is still the same:

No.

I hate leaving it at that.  The situation is entirely outside our control (“our” meaning my client’s control or mine) and all we can do is wait.  The litigant is breathing down my client’s neck, or (worse) the judge is breathing down my client’s neck… still no.  But a simple “No” answer is just too abrupt, and “not yet” doesn’t paint a sufficient picture.  I usually end up sending links to several past blog posts in the hope that they’ll offer some solace and perspective on an otherwise uncontrollable situation.

The posts I don’t send in those messages are a little harshly titled, but frankly, they have to be harsh in order to stress the magnitude of differences between the way we do things here in the U.S. and Canada and the way things are done everywhere else.

This is also harsh, and perhaps overly blunt, but for crying out loud, GET OUT OF YOUR AMERICAN LAWYER HEAD.

Seriously, get over the idea that a United States District Judge has the authority to tell a judge or bureaucrat in another country what to do.  Just stop it.  You must face reality.

Sure, you already get that.  But so must your judge and so must your client.  Tell them to just stop it.

1753282441-7554-7750-lxb_photo6MpM1d4Uxfklxb_photo-
JC Gellidon, Unsplash

Alternate title: You don’t serve a Central Authority. Ever.

So stop saying it.

Over the past couple of years, we’ve seen an uptick in the number of plaintiffs’ attorneys who submit FedEx receipts, attesting to delivery of Hague Service Requests to Central Authorities, filing them as proof of service. In most instances, it’s either a lack of other filing options in an ECF system (having to choose the type of pleading with no “Other” option available), or merely a misstatement, meant only to demonstrate counsel’s fulfillment of the plaintiff’s duty of reasonable diligence in getting the job done.

In other instances, though, they assert that service is complete upon delivery to the foreign authority and that’s that. I’ve even heard anecdotally that such a claim was recently stapled to a default motion, but haven’t seen anything to support such a flawed assertion. To be sure, it’s not too far fetched if a litigator equates a Hague Central Authority with a Secretary of State or other statutory agent here in the U.S. Obviously, if a defendant entity fails to maintain a registered agent, the Secretary in Albany or Juneau or Des Moines is the statutory backup. But I’ve always had a problem with that from a due process perspective– after all, what does the Secretary do with it? Even if it were a reasonably calculated means of giving a defendant notice of a suit, it’s a false equivalency to say a Central Authority is an offshore defendant’s statutory agent.

Hague Central Authorities are not agents for service. Full stop. They are the designated government agencies (or courts) responsible for seeing that service is effected according to their own internal laws, but they are not the defendant’s agent. Lawyers and courts must recognize that simple truth.

* Although it clearly doesn’t equate to proof of service, delivery to the Central Authority could arguably constitute a basis to deem a defendant served. Hat tip to the good folks at Steptoe & Johnson for highlighting Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics, issued in the D.C. Circuit four years ago. Lots of nuance in that action– a FSIA case brought to enforce an ICSID arbitral award against Venezuela. There seems to be a circuit split over the question of whether foreign sovereigns shouldn’t be deemed served despite inaction by their Hague Central Authorities, but even where the 5th Circuit goes the opposite way, it still emphasizes that service on non-governmental actors demands a higher degree of notice, and with it, actual proof. The 2d Circuit doesn’t go as far (and I’m not sure whether I disagree with the 2d on this one), holding that, where a company has actual notice, the strict formalism of the Hague Service Convention must yield to reality. If the plaintiff has fulfilled its duty to pursue Hague channels and the defendant knows about the case, let’s stop screwing around and litigate this thing, shall we? (This discussion is fleshed out in St. Gobain’s unsuccessful petition for cert. at 16-18.)

hot topic words in a 1958 dictionary.
Mick Haupt, Unsplash

Our business, navigating the minefield of the Hague Service Convention, has seen a pretty big uptick lately, particularly in the personal injury and IP fields. As litigators sue an ever-growing number of offshore defendants, they’re increasingly reliant on firms like ours to get those defendants served. What we provide those litigators is pretty straightforward and, once we’ve pinned down the appropriate or preferred method of service, it’s not difficult to offer time projections and cost calculations. Sticker shock can definitely be a thing, especially when we break the news that service in Mexico or India or Vietnam could take two years (<– that’s not a typo). But the line item in our engagements that causes the most surprise– and ire– is translation.

What do you mean it’s going to cost $45,000 to translate this? The defendants all speak English!

Well, two points are pertinent here.

  • For starters, you’re serving in Notamerica, where they don’t officially speak English, so they require translation into Notenglish. It’s not about the defendant— it’s about the foreign country’s requirements under Article 5(3) of the Hague Service Convention. And you’ve got three Notamerican defendants in three different Notamerican countries that require three different languages. To the tune of fifteen grand each.
  • Why fifteen grand each? Well, it comes down to the biggest reality lawyers face: we don’t get paid by the word. You have a 97-page complaint with 22 exhibits. It’s a pricy venture.

But do you know who does get paid by the word?

TRANSLATORS.

TRANSLATORS GET PAID BY THE WORD.

So now I give you my favorite line from Ocean’s Eleven — the Clooney/Pitt/Damon version rather than Sinatra/Martin/Lawford (but with a particular nod to my fellow Kansas Citian, Don Cheadle).

Don’t use seven words when four will do.

Seriously…

  • Think back to 1L legal writing class. Remember word limits?
  • Think back to the last appellate brief you filed. Remember page limits?
  • Think back to the old adage “sorry I couldn’t make this shorter– I didn’t have enough time.” Remember being told to make time?

Okay, page and word limits exist because law professors and judges already have enough to read, and woe is the 1L or veteran litigator who forgets that. But apply this to your firm’s pocketbook, and more particularly, to your client’s pocketbook. Verbosity is expensive. And when you need to serve a defendant in Notamerica, odds are pretty good that you’ll have to translate every word on every page that gets handed to the defendant. So a few tips to keep in mind:

Save your firm and your client a bunch by holding back. Seriously.

* Hint: it’s not easy. If it were, I wouldn’t have a practice.

A plea to the senior partner overseeing a lawsuit:

Stop throwing your junior people to the wolves.

Hear me out here. (This applies equally to non-attorney staff– the more junior they are, the more this is important.)

Litigators are busy people. I get it. You have 168 hours in a week and at least twelve of those need to be devoted to sleep. Especially in complex matters, it’s imperative to delegate different parts of the effort to the right members of the team.

  • “Susan (who just made partner), you’ll run the show on trial strategy & theme.”
  • “Dave (your fifth-year mentee), start thinking about how you’ll run discovery.”
  • “Kathy (your 14-year paralegal), you’re running all support staff functions.”
  • “Timmy (first-year associate who just passed the bar exam), go get these overseas defendants served.”

As if that last one is the simplest and least important part of the quest.

The basis for Timmy’s assignment surely must be the belief that service of process is a simple, straightforward procedure, so it’s not a risk to hand it to somebody who is bright but woefully inexperienced. But it’s a huge risk, and you’re setting the kid up for failure. Or frustration. Or your ire.

Timmy does a Google search for how to serve process in Notamerica, and he finds an august online publication called The Hague Law Blog. He peruses my country-specific post on Notamerica and calls me to ask for a price tag. It’s not that simple, I say. You have options, and that means a wide cost range. But Timmy isn’t privy to your grand strategy, and he lacks the authority to make any decisions, so he and I spend hours going back & forth about options, as he relays information from me to you and your questions back to me through him. He’s a go-between, because you just don’t have the time to deal with something so trivial as service of process.

You’re not only setting Timmy up for failure– you’re wasting your own time and mine because you won’t just pick up the phone and talk to me. We could have a strategy mapped out in fifteen minutes if we could chat directly. And your mind would be put at ease.

And speaking of wolves (just for fun), here’s a gratuitous reference to the glory of the 1980s.

PXL_20251211_120651132

We aren’t building rockets here.  But we are building a ship of sorts, and a leaky vessel means the cargo may not make it to its destination. If that ship is going between the Mediterranean Sea and the western hemisphere, odds are it sails by Gibraltar. This article is posted from atop The Rock itself (see above– no, really).

Serving process in Gibraltar is subject to the strictures of the Hague Service Convention, regardless of which U.S. or Canadian venue is hearing the matter.  The tiny headland is an overseas territory of the United Kingdom, which has extended the treaty’s effect to most of the remaining parts of its former Empire; this includes the UK declarations.*  A fair number of U.S. tourists spend time in Gibraltar (including your author), just a short drive from the resorts of Spain’s Costa del Sol. It’s also a tax haven and high-tech hub (read: e-Gaming and fintech), so a not-insignificant amount of U.S. litigation involves entities situated on its 2.3 square miles.**

Some background is in order, if you’re so inclined, before we cut to the chase.

Now, for the chase scene.  Here’s how service is effected in Gibraltar:

Article 5 Service

  • Translate the documents. The UK’s declaration to Article 5(3) requires that documents be in English.  Game over, right?  Pack up and go home?  Not so fast, counsel… make sure your defendant speaks English, because his U.S. Due Process rights follow him, in a sense.  Anybody sued in a U.S. court must be served in a language they understand, so if they don’t speak English, translation is still necessary.
  • Fill out a USM-94. Be very careful about ensuring that it is complete and concise, and make sure that it is signed by a court official or an attorney.  If it is not, make sure that the person signing is commissioned by the court.
  • Send to the Central Authority.
  • Sit tight. It may take a while—possibly several weeks or months from submission to return of proof.

Article 10 alternative methods

  • Mail service is available, but it’s a bad idea anyway.
  • Service via private agent (process server) is available to U.S. litigants under Article 10(c). This is absolutely critical—make sure to have the process server instructed by a solicitor, or the attempt to serve is ineffective, as it violates the UK’s position on Article 10.

Pretty straightforward stuff in Gibraltar.  For more insight, the UK’s declarations and Central Authority information can be found here.

Bonus practice tip… if you’re defense counsel, always question the validity of service effected on your overseas client.  The plaintiff may not have done it correctly.

* Declarations (also called reservations in treaty law) frustrate the hell out of U.S. practitioners who aren’t aware that they change the effect of statutory text.  If a country declares its opposition to Article 10 (Germany and China do, for example), then Article 10 does not exist between it and the United States.  The methods described there aren’t even part of the agreement.

** Depends on who you ask. The local government says 2.25, other sources say 2.5 or 2.6… point is, it’s itty bitty. And much of the itty bitty is a vertical rock, so the occupied land is ittier bittier. And psychotically easy to get around.

Author’s note: this little headland was always a curiosity in my youth, and I’m finally visiting just shy of my 54th birthday. It was in the opening scene of the much-maligned (fairly or unfairly) Timothy Dalton debut as 007 in The Living Daylights. It was also the centerpiece of corporate branding for insurance giant Prudential. The company’s 1970s & 80s jingle was stuck in my head until I made the ill-fated decision in my twenties to sign on as a Prudential agent. I was terrible at prospecting, and failed miserably. But my short stint as a gravel salesman (little pieces of Rock… get it?) proved an amazing learning experience, and I’m still a Prudential client three decades later.

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Artem Beliaikin, Unsplash

A few years ago, I put up a brief post about a service of process story with a Kansas City connection– and nothing whatsoever to do with the Hague Service Convention. See, Jason Sudeikis (yes, he of Ted Lasso fame) is one of Kansas City’s favorite sons, so when his attorney served a custody action on Olivia Wilde during one of her public appearances, it made the local news here. The Twitterati naturally went berserk, accusing Sudeikis of being an ass (he’s not, and he wasn’t– I’ve met the guy’s parents, and they wouldn’t cotton to misbehavior). He and Wilde have since settled their dispute to the tune of about $30,000 a month, and by all accounts, their kids are doing well.

But another Kansas City service story dropped recently, and it stands in stark contrast to that in Sudeikis v. Wilde. In that case, I speculated that the process server had to get creative, and I thought that’s what this one had to do. But now we have the litigation between actors Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni (see here if you just have to know more), with a spill-over to the biggest celebrity news in KC right now: Travis and Tay-Tay.*

Seems that either Lively’s or Baldoni’s lawyers– I’m not sure which– needed to hit Taylor Swift with a deposition subpoena, so they hired a (less-than-reputable) ex-cop who hopped over Travis Kelce’s fence at 2 o’clock in the morning. Of course, 87’s security system kicked in, and within minutes the P.D. had the fellow cuffed in the back of a squad car. Turns out the police in Leawood (the tony suburb just across State Line Road from Kansas City, Missouri) are fans of the newly-engaged couple and are motivated to be there when needs must. To be sure, I’d wager there’s a whole lot of lookie-loos trying to catch a glimpse of the Hallbrook development’s most famous residents, so they probably cruise by a lot.

But here’s the thing… these two stories are dramatically different. The process server who placed a manila envelope at Olivia Wilde’s feet didn’t do anything unprofessional. She (yes, she) simly approached, told Wilde that she had something for her, and left it at that. Embarrassing? Sure. A bit of a surprise under not-so-happy circumstances? Of course.

But it didn’t involve criminal trespass and it didn’t require a galactic level of stupidity to even think one could pull it off.

You can give ’em books and you can give ’em books…

** The Chiefs are 6-6 as of this writing. We have to have something else to think about around here, so it may as well be a wedding.