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Evangelina Silina, Unsplash

We handle Hague Service Requests for lawsuits in courts across the continent, from Puerto Rico to Guam to Nunavut (yes, Nunavut, the Canadian territory way up on the Arctic Ocean.) All of our clients are attorneys and their firms. All. That is an absolute. Occasionally, though, when we send a client an engagement letter, the client will ask us to revise and address it to the litigant. My response:

Sorry, we can’t do that.

Or, more accurately stated, we won’t do that, for a host of reasons.

For starters, I’m admitted to practice in Missouri. End of list. Even though my practice is limited to transnational legal doctrine, that means there’s a less-than-two percent chance that I can advise that litigant without the possibility of a UPL charge. I’d beat the charge (federal issue, after all), but it’s just not worth it.

Second, advising a litigant directly means getting in the middle of an attorney-client relationship. In that situation, I might say something that contradicts what the litigant’s lawyer told them, which could make the lawyer look bad. Even with that lawyer’s fully informed consent and direction, no thanks. I’m not about to cast that colleague in even a glimmer of bad light.

Third, if we take an engagement with the litigant, the litigant might think that I’m his or her lawyer. I’m not, and I don’t want even a hint of a possibility that s/he will think so.

And last, if a litigant engages us directly, that naturally gives the impression that they call the shots and can ring us up and pepper us with questions and tell us what to do. Nope, not gonna do that. My job is to explain relevant/applicable doctrines of international and foreign (many of them arcane and obscure) law to my clients, and then to apply those doctrines to a case in controversy. It’s far easier, and takes significantly less time, to explain those doctrines to attorneys and paralegals who are already up to speed on the domestic law that applies as well.

To be sure, our fees can be paid by a litigant. That’s often necessary just in the interest of expediency. But the ultimate shot-caller, if there are any calls to be made, is the litigant’s lawyer.

Author’s note: I’ve varied from this rule three times in my career. Two of them were unmitigated disasters, and the other was no picnic.

It happens all the time.  I’ll give a lecture or mention what I do at a bar association event, and the colleague I just met will express appreciation for what I do, tell me it’s a really neat niche, and then try to convince himself that our practice areas don’t overlap.  I’m here to tell you that, yes, they do.  The conversation usually goes something like this:

Sorry, Aaron.  I’m an insurance lawyer, I’ll never need to serve anybody in a foreign country.  But thanks for doing that CLE.  You’re a funny guy.  (Funny how?  I’m a clown?  I amuse you?)  No, I mean I really like how you got that picture of the Game of Thrones guy into your slide deck!

Seriously.
This is Boromir.  I use him all the time in CLE decks and in blogs. Why reinvent the wheel? (To be sure, this is not Ned Stark.  He just looks like Ned Stark.)

Wait a sec, there, pal.  It’s likely that you will have to serve abroad someday.  Ever handle a subrogation case?  (Yes.)  Ever sue a manufacturer of a defective product that caused property damage or injury?  (Yes.)  Think Toyota or Krupps or Gree Electric Appliances might be your defendant?  (Hmmmm.)  Bear with me here…

Rule 4 (Fed. R. Civ. P.) and its state analogs will govern your quest, and they start off right up front with service of process. Rule 4(f) specifically incorporates the Hague Service Convention, and even if it didn’t, Volkswagenwerk Aktiengesellschaft v. Schlunk, 486 U.S. 694 (1988), does.  Schlunk says specifically that if the Convention applies, you have to follow it. And it doesn’t matter whether it’s a divorce or a contract dispute or a subrogation case.

Yet, rejoice, dear colleagues who represent insurors who just want to recoup their losses.  You are under no heavier a burden than the rest of us.  Just pretend you’re trying an injury action or a patent infringement or what have you. There is literally no difference in how you get service effected.

There’s a problem, though:  proper Hague service takes a while.  A very long while in many instances.  And Rule 4(m) says you have to have a defendant served in 90 days or the court has to dismiss the action.*

Except, no.  Rule 4(m) sets out a 90-day deadline for service, but that deadline is also inapplicable to service abroad.

Simply put, if you have to serve a defendant outside the United States, it probably won’t happen quickly.  Sure, we might be able to get it done in England or (Anglophone) Canada within a couple of days.

Nnnnnnneee!
Nnnnnnneee!

In France?  Non.  Germany?  Nein.  The Netherlands?  Nee. —>

Okay, maybe a short time in the Netherlands. But in Mexico or China or India?  Not a snowball’s chance in hell.

It bears repeating.  The Hague Service Convention controls how all this gets done wherever it applies.  It’s a treaty, to which the United States is a party, and which entered into force right about the time my mom graduated from high school.  Thanks to the Supremacy Clause, its strictures override lesser laws. A gentle reminder:

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.  (Art. VI-2)

(Emphasis mine.)

In short, if the judge balks at keeping your case on the docket past Day 90, tell the judge that James Madison & Alexander Hamilton said they have to.

* State rules vary, of course. Many simply track FRCP 4(m), while others allow enlargement for good cause, and what better cause can there be than a crystal clear edict from Justice O’Connor? (Sorry, Wisconsin & Michigan… you’re my problem jurisdictions. In order to reach the same result, y’all have to resort to Equal Protection arguments!)

Stopwatch
William Warby, Unsplash

Short answer: no.

It is what it is, y’all, especially in what I call “5-0” countries. The lack of options is the biggest inhibitor to speedy service, and believe me, if there’s a better way to go, I’m going to sing it from the rooftops.

What do I mean?

Well, the Hague Service Convention essentially offers two viable options, with a sort of hybrid of the two:

  • Article 5 service, in which we request the assistance of a designated Hague Central Authority to effect service according to the foreign country’s law.
  • Article 10 service– 10(b) originating from the U.S. or 10(c) service from Canada*– in which we directly engage “competent persons” in the foreign country. Think process servers in Australia or judicial bailiffs in the Netherlands.
  • Article 5(b) service, in which we ask the Central Authority to appoint our chosen affiliates and agents to get the job done. This is done to get the best of both worlds: speed and control thanks to a private or quasi-private operative, along with the official imprimatur of the state.

The 10(b)/10(c)/5(b) options are what I mean when I say that, if there’s a better way to go, I’m going to sing it from the rooftops. Those are the methods I recommend most wholeheartedly. But with garden-variety Article 5 Requests, there’s often little to sing about. Simply put, do not pass go, do not collect $200. In places like Vietnam and China and Mexico, there’s no feasible way to speed up the process, and that process can take seemingly forever.

There’s no way around that dilemma, contrary to a whole lot of horrible, terrible, no good case law that says “nah, go ahead and do it by email, regardless of what Justice O’Connor says.”

There is hope in a couple of different ways, both to keep the court at bay and (to a lesser degree) to assuage your client’s frustration that it takes so blasted long.

  1. There’s safe harbor in every rulebook out there except two– and constitutional arguments can be made about both of those. Most notably, U.S. federal rules specifically lift the ordinary service deadline, so as long as you’re diligent about getting the process started, the court can’t ding you when the local judicial officials in Biên Hòa or Guangdong or Sonora take a year to open their mail.
  2. In many countries, like Switzerland and Korea, it takes comparatively little time for proof to come back. No, there’s no valid alternative to Central Authority service, but those authorities get the job done in a relatively speedy manner.

In short, relax. You have to let them do their job.

* Subtle difference between the two here. Simply put, if I direct service of U.S. process in an Article 10 country, I can do it pursuant to Article 10(b) because attorneys are designated as forwarding authorities for the purpose of the Convention. But for me to direct service of Canadian process, it’s 10(c) because I’m not a member of a Canadian law society. But I’m still an interested person under that section.

It began as a mistake
Santa Barbara, Unsplash

TL;DR: think Miranda. Anything you say in a filing about proof of Hague Service could be used against you. So don’t say anything. Also, I’m a nerd who digs arcane Latin terms like probatur even though I never studied Latin.

A bit of background is in order here.

My firm’s primary job is to have service effected on defendants located abroad. We provide our clients (all lawyers) either of two types of proof when a job is completed:

  • When we have service effected through official channels, it’s a Certificate prescribed by Article 6 of the Hague Service Convention.
  • When we serve privately in, say, England or Australia, it’s a full-blown affidavit rather than the standard proof form used by the forum court. Those just don’t say enough about how service is effective.

On more than a couple of occasions over the past year, my clients have filed proof of overseas service in the same manner in which they file proofs of service that’s effected in their own hometown. They’ll take the Hague Certificate or affidavit I send them, and overlay that proof with their own affidavit giving a rundown of how they made things happen.

That can be problematic, especially when they embellish what the proof says, using the term “personal” service unadvisedly (I’ll develop that momentarily). It’s almost always unnecessary to elaborate, especially in federal court, where Rule 4(l)(2) — that’s Four Elle Two — just says proof of service abroad has to be either [a] prescribed by a treaty (eg: a Hague Certificate) or [b] satisfactory in the court’s view to demonstrate good service. We strive to ensure that everything the court needs to know is laid down in the affidavit provided by our overseas agents. Article 6 does that by design– literally everything the court needs is right there in the Certificate.

A takeaway I gleaned not long ago from The Secret Barrister (which I highly recommend) is this: yes, legislatures make statutes, but judges feel an instinctive need to put their own gloss on the text of those statutes.  They can’t help it. It’s an irresistible urge. I have something to say about this and I’m gonna say it!

That’s bad. At one time or another, every lawyer is on the receiving end of judicial error, and it’s infuriating when a judge reads something into text that just isn’t there (read about my white whale here).

The rest of us– lawyers who don’t wear black robes and bang little wooden hammers on our desks– are prone to the same irresistible urge. I have something to say about this and I’m gonna say it!

That’s bad too.*

What do I mean by using the term “personal” service unadvisedly? Well, depending on how “personal” is defined, you could be making an incorrect statement, prompting very silly arguments by defense counsel. To be sure, you’ll win the fight– calling substituted service personal, even innocently, doesn’t negate the legal effectiveness of that service. But it’s an avoidable fight, and one that just wastes everybody’s time.

In the majority of our projects, process isn’t actually placed into a defendant’s hands. Rather, it’s handed to a family member or housekeeper, popped into a mail slot, or taped to the defendant’s door. That doesn’t negate its effectiveness, but that service arguably isn’t personal.

So don’t add your own gloss to the document. Just say “here’s the proof of service” and let the probatur ipsa do its loquitur thing.

* Craig Ferguson, that hilarious Scotsman-turned-Yank, offers a three-question rule that he applies every time he has an urge to say something potentially damaging (this clip is a bit NSFW). (1) Does this need to be said? (2) Does this need to be said by me? (3) Does this need to be said by me, now? That rule has saved me a whole bunch of heartache (yes, I still break it regularly, but less frequently as I reach middle age).

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Vladimir Solomianyi, Unsplash

This is a tough one to explain to civilians (read: litigants), which is one reason we don’t work directly with civilians. Lawyers get it, which is one reason we love working for lawyers, and only for lawyers. Not to sound too much like Henry Hill, but pre-payment is just something we can’t waver from.

Simply put, I absolutely hate having to chase a client down for money. I hate having a relationship sour because of it. I hate thinking highly of a colleague at the beginning and then thinking poorly of that same colleague later when my firm is owed several thousand dollars but we’ve gone two years without being paid.

See, if I can’t get somebody to pay for our involvement up front (with the protection of trust accounting rules, of course) it’s going to be even more difficult prying fees out of them when the work is done. What we do can’t be undone– we can’t un-effect service just because our client refuses to pay, and it’s unethical to withhold proof of service just because we haven’t gotten our vig.

The biggest challenge with many of our larger clients (think AmLaw 200 firms) is just getting the check cut, and if that happens, we’ll start working while FedEx does its thing.* We have great relationships with those firms’ litigators, but those litigators rely on their accounting offices to cut the checks, and the folks in accounting often see no urgency to get a bill paid when the work’s already been done. They’ll get to it when they get to it, and we’re too small an operation to work that way.

Another challenge across the board is “we pay when we’re paid,” essentially meaning that it’s all up to the litigant to cut a check. Again, if I can’t get somebody to pay for our involvement up front, it’s going to be even more difficult prying fees out of them when the work is done. It’s perfectly understandable that the parties’ counsel isn’t willing to front our costs.

It’s just that simple.

(Side note: we don’t take credit cards either. Some of the projects we handle top out in the six-figure range, and to think that Amex or Visa or MasterCard get five grand for a single transaction… no thanks. It’s also (arguably) unethical to pass along those fees to a litigant, so… no thanks. On the other hand, ACH and traditional wire transfers are incredibly simple in this day & age. We do accept those.)

* Notice that I didn’t say “while the post office does its thing”. I hate to say it, but relying on the post office these days isn’t just unwise. It’s irresponsible.

Mail Icon in 3D. Feel free to contact me through email mariia@shalabaieva.com
Mariia Shalabaieva, Unsplash

I haven’t written much about this topic except to update a couple of past posts, bringing them in line with recent developments as to electronic service and the Hague Service Convention. Frankly, the developments don’t alter my usual contention a whole lot, but they do provide some persuasive authority for e-service’s use in certain scenarios. It also puts to bed a whole bunch of farcical arguments made by plaintiffs’ attorneys– my people, for the record– who love to find ways around doctrines that shouldn’t be circumvented.

For starters, I contend that serving by mail is usually* just the cheap & easy way out. Yeah, it happens all the time, and if it brings a defendant to the table, great. But as a basis for a default judgment it is, in a word, lazy. Sloppy. Unwise. [Okay, three words.]

And I would extend that to say that service by email is the even cheaper & easier way out, lazier, sloppier, and even more unwise in all but the rarest cases.

We finally have some development– exceedingly sensible development, to be sure– on the compatibility of electronic service, particularly email, and the Hague Service Convention. I owe a huge thanks to Ted Folkman for his fantastic commentary following his attendance this past summer at the Special Commission on the Hague Service and Evidence Conventions. Ted publishes the always-insightful Letters Blogatory and his specific coverage of the event is carried over at the Transnational Litigation Blog. Ted covers the academic/”brief the court”/philosophical aspect of the question. My very presumptive post here takes all of his fine work and distills it into a nuts & bolts checklist. Seriously, your average PI litigator or IP lawyer or family law attorney or (insert litigation specialty here) just doesn’t have the time or bandwidth to devote to this stuff, so here’s the TL;DR: the Special Commission has determined that email is a postal channel.**

As such, email service is legally valid under Article 10(a) of the Hague Service Convention.

But that’s not the end of the analysis. Woe to the litigator who just sees that conclusion and proceeds straight to a 4(f)(3) motion, because it’s still a deeper strategic question than “is email okay under FRCP?” Four big issues:

(1) Article 10(a) objections

Okay, so email is a postal channel. Great. Don’t even think about it in destinations where the state has objected to Article 10(a). If you can’t use FedEx, you can’t use Outlook or Gmail or Compuserv (yes, I have clients with Compuserv addresses– they still drive AMC Gremlins to work and their grandkids are already millionaires). This means that e-service on all those Schedule A defendants in 5-0 countries like China, Vietnam, Mexico, Germany… nein. Das ist nicht gut. Conclusively.

(2) How do you prove it?

But say you’re talking about someplace where 10(a) is acceptable. You’ve got to ask yourself about the last time you answered a read-receipt? For me, it was during the Clinton Administration. Unless the defendant has an out-of-office set up or is so myopic as to actually reply to you, you’re unlikely to have anything to show the court that says “see, your honor? They got it.” Sure, it may be all you have to go on so the court needs to accept a presumption, but when other, more demonstrable methods are available, don’t go this route.

(3) Do you want the defendant to actually show up?

If the only goal is to get a default judgment so you can show Amazon that a product line should be taken down, or so that you can show Customs & Border Patrol that infringing goods should be seized upon entry, then email service is fine. Provided you didn’t serve a defendant with a known address in a 5-0 country, and provided you can prove things up, it’s sufficient. That’s a whole lot of “provided” conditions.

(4) Will you have to enforce overseas?

Okay, let’s say you do get a U.S. judgment, whether default or on-the-merits. What then? If you have to seek enforcement of that judgment in a foreign country’s court, one of the first things that court is going to look at is the manner of service (they all have due process notions too). And while we might contend that e-service is constitutionally valid, they may not, regardless of its validity under the Convention. Remember, it ain’t over until your client gets a check, so don’t just take the cheap & easy way.

Wrapping it all up.

I’ve argued for years that, when other tenable methods of service are available, service by mail is a bad idea. The Special Commission’s determination last summer extends that argument to e-service. Bottom line: it may be the right thing to do in rare cases, but most of the time, it’s not.

* In rare cases, I actually recommend mail and electronic service, usually in non-Hague countries where Letters Rogatory are the only other option. But when there are viable Hague Article 5 and 10(b) channels available, they’re just cheaping out.

** Go to Ted’s commentary to see the arguments for and against this conclusion, because there’s just no room here and his insights are thorough and accurate. Period.

A harsh reality in the service of process world: once a Hague Service Request gets to a foreign Central Authority, it’s pretty well locked up– especially once it’s been underway for several weeks or months. No amendments can be made, no documents can be added, and no revisions can be made to the defendant’s address. Most of the time, all we can do is submit another Request, which means more costs and longer delays– especially if the thing has to be translated.

Now that said, in some situations, if we have a great working relationship with that Central Authority, we can shoot over an email that says “hey, Bob,* could we add one more doc to the stack on that Request I FedEx’ed to you last week?” That’s pretty rare, but once in a while it can be done. Once in a very long while.

In 99.44% of cases, the window of opportunity is extraordinarily tight, even if we have a Bob to talk to. Once it leaves Bob’s hands, he can’t do anything with it either. The Central Authority hands the process off to a regional authority, the regional authority hands it off to a local authority, and by the time it gets to the front line judicial officer who will serve it, there’s no tracking it, even if the foreign bureaucrats involved wanted to.

The only way to get that “oh wait– one last document” served is to tee up a brand new request, with all of the additional costs that entails, and hit it down the fairway again. But most courts understand what’s involved in Hague Service, so we very infrequently see a great deal of pushback. Judges and clerks understand, by and large, that things just don’t work over there the way they work here, and it’s not our rules that control the procedure.

As such, I recommend holding off until (if) the defendant appears, then serve that thing on opposing counsel.

* Bob is a generic Central Authority guy. No, his name isn’t really Bob. We don’t have many Bobs around the world.

TL;DR… be patient. It’s a process.

Several years ago, I published a pair of posts that are even more important to keep in mind now, in a post-pandemic world:

The spring of 2019 seems like a decade ago when you “carry the Covid,” but the point I tried to make in those posts is even more critical today. Regardless of who sits in the big chair at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the United States continues to withdraw its leadership in the world and, correspondingly, its global security guarantees. This means we’re consciously abandoning many of our prior claims that we can tell everybody else what to do.

So how is that relevant to what I do? Well…

One of my favorite clients referred a colleague to me recently. The colleague engaged us to serve a defendant in Notamerica,* a jurisdiction that allows private service under certain conditions. The primary of those conditions: the Republic of Notamerica determines precisely who can serve, and how those people can serve, within its borders. We can’t hire just anybody to do the job. Notamerica is particularly straightforward and relatively easy in the Hague Service world, but things have to be done just so.

Now, any time a client sends someone my way, I try just a skosh harder to be gentle with reality checks. It’s not just my reputation on the line, but the reputation of the person who thinks highly enough of me to send me business.

When I told the new colleague that it would take a couple of weeks to get the job done, he was incensed. The plaintiff was barking at him to get the litigation underway, so he barked at me to get it done faster. He just couldn’t fathom that service couldn’t be done RIGHT DAMN NOW and insisted that I make it happen.

Sorry, replied I. It just doesn’t work that way. Quoting Archbishop Gilday from The Godfather Part III, I said… we have rules– we have very old rules.

Chief among those very old rules is one that American lawyers must internalize:

We do not call the shots over there.

Wherever “over there” is.

Colleagues, you can only properly advise your client when they go after an overseas defendant if you have the right mindset first (it also becomes much easier to manage expectations). And when you’re dealing with treaty doctrines and offshore procedural rules, that means setting aside any assumption that U.S. standards or expectations apply. A tough pill to swallow for a nation that (1) beat the Nazis, (2) beat the Empire of Japan, (3) established the Bretton Woods Order and the seven-odd decades of relative peace and prosperity that flowed from it, and (4) brought down the Soviet Union without killing a whole bunch of Soviets.

The reality is that we do not call the shots in Ireland or New South Wales or Ontario. And those are places run by people who actually like us. We also don’t call the shots in Guangdong or Anatolia or Caracas, where they definitely don’t like us.

When we American lawyers are more cognizant of how things work overseas, and accepting of the fact that we aren’t in charge, litigating across borders suddenly becomes a lot less frustrating.

That still doesn’t mean it’s easy, but it’s less frustrating.

* Notamerica is a fictional place, used here to protect the innocent among the practicing bar. Don’t be silly.

For starters, it’s officially been simply Czechia since 2016 (see here). Peggy and I were just there a couple of weeks ago, and even the Czechs still call it the Czech Republic and Czechia interchangeably; admittedly, so do I. What they don’t call it anymore: Czechoslovakia– that nation ceased to exist three decades ago, and frankly, was a made up concept anyway.

Service of process in Czechia is subject to the strictures of the Hague Service Convention.  This holds true regardless of which U.S. or Canadian venue is hearing the matter.  You’ve got three ways to get it done:

  1. Tap us on the shoulder for bespoke attention—and probably some amusing commentary to boot (see the upper right if you’re on a desktop, or way down below if you’re on a phone/tablet),
  2. Cruise over to the Hague Envoy platform at USM94.com to automate the completion of your forms in perhaps twenty minutes or so, or
  3. If you’re feeling froggy & would like to handle the whole thing yourself, keep reading.  This lays out the framework you’ll need.

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

Here’s how it’s done in the Czech Republic:

Article 5 Service

Article 10 alternative methods

  • Czechia objects to Article 10 in its entirety, so its alternatives are simply off the table.

Seriously—that’s all there is to it.  The method is straightforward and simple.  Czechia’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.  [That actually happened once, with a defendant in Norway, and her lawyers were smart enough to fight the issue.  The Washington Court of Appeals erroneously thought going outside the Central Authority was okay, but their Supreme Court saw the matter differently.]

If you have a chance to visit Prague, I highly recommend it. Simply a wonderful city with wonderful people and scenery, not to mention a very colorful history.

US dollar banknotes
engin akyurt, Unsplash

The Dutch– an exceedingly practical and direct people– have a saying: Goedkoop is Duurkoop. Cheap is expensive. We of the anglophone persuasion have a variation on that theme: you get what you pay for.

But the Dutch version captures reality far more forcefully. Cheap is expensive is an apt way of articulating the constant tension between price and value. That tension pops up its head in everyday household shopping, high-stakes litigation, and everything in between.

Plaintiffs’ lawyers seeking to serve defendants abroad have myriad choices in how to go about getting the job done:

  • They can DIY that thing (I don’t recommend it).
  • They can call their usual process server (occasionally a good idea, frequently a bad idea).
  • They can use a document automation system to fill out the right forms in the right way (shameless plug right here). A sort of “assisted do-it-yourself” option.
  • Or they can hire one of the few lawyers who handle overseas service on a regular basis (wink, wink).

All of those options bring different costs to the party, but choosing the right way necessarily includes a price versus value analysis. I can tell you categorically that my firm will not offer you the lowest price tag. And no, we aren’t K-Mart,* so we don’t price match. I don’t say that out of hubris– I say it because price matching presumes like-for-like, mass produced, fungible goods. That’s not what we provide. [It’s not what translators provide either, but that’s the subject of a different post.]

If you’re a beer guy, you know that Heileman’s Old Style cans cost a third of what a local craft brew costs. If you’re mowing the lawn on a hot Saturday afternoon, Old Style does you just fine (I actually prefer it). But if you’re gathering around a green felt table for a game of cards with some law school buddies later that evening, you want something better (I highly recommend Kansas City’s own Boulevard Pale Ale, but that’s just me). The value proposition is key.

Flying to Seattle for a meeting with a client? Sure, you could fly a bargain airline for $99, but they’ll nickel & dime you for everything from carry-on space to emergency oxygen in case of sudden cabin depressurization. For $299 on one of the Big Three, you get an actual seat belt, a real safety briefing, and if you’re kind to the gate agent, maybe a free checked bag. Even on the same plane, you can plunk down an extra fifty bucks for a bit more legroom (I’m 6’4″ and have to do that anyway) and a bigger cookie at snack time. Again, value versus price tag, based on your needs and resources.

Litigation is no different, really. You don’t want to hire the cheapest expert witness, do you? You don’t want to skimp on printing & binding for your appellate filing (I found that one out the hard way early in my career). And you don’t staff your firm with underqualified people because you can pay them less than you would pay an experienced crew. Those are all critical elements of a litigation practice, and value trumps price tag.

Ultimately, this isn’t something to shop around for, anymore than a litigant shopping around and choosing a law firm whose hourly fee is lower than the firm down the hall.  They choose you (I hope!) because you could provide competent counsel and litigate vigorously on their behalf. 

So why leave your overseas complexities to the low bidder? Or worse, why try to do it yourself? Truly, it may end up costing you more than you think.

Above all– don’t cheap out. Spend the extra money on address investigation in China. Pay a proper translation provider to handle your linguistic work. And for Kresge’s sake, don’t try to serve by email when you know darn good and well where your defendant is located.

Goedkoop is Duurkoop.

* Anybody else miss K-Mart? Blue Light Specials were awesome back in the 1970s, and in the 1990s, K-Mart Store #4465 gave me a great place to work as a college student.

This was long before I was in college.