[Author’s note: I am a huge fan of the Harry Potter universe. The new “prequel” really is fantastic. Go see the movie, buy the script… immerse yourself in this new story line. Or as of summer 2022… see the latest in the magizoologist’s story.]
Newt Scamander had a problem when he showed up in
This can most fairly be categorized under “how to not have to hire Viking Advocates”, but here’s a great practice tip:
If a cooperative defendant is outside the United States, don’t have them accept service. Instead, have them waive service.
I’ll grant you, this is a distinction that only a lawyer could love, but it
U.S. Marshals Form 94, the much-feared Hague Service Request. It’s just a form to fill out, not unlike a tax return simpler to complete than a Letter Rogatory.
This is the proper form for Article 5 of the Hague Service Convention, so if that isn’t your treaty, move along, because these aren’t the droids you’re looking for.
Continue Reading How to Complete a Form USM-94 Hague Service Request (2024 update)
It certainly wasn’t a slow weekend in global politics. New Zealand’s exceedingly popular Prime Minister announced his retirement, Austria’s voters barely shunned a return to power by the hard right, and Italians rebuffed an arguably critical spate of constitutional reforms, prompting the resignation of their own popular PM. So, what to make of these stories
Ours is a small community, this group of lawyers who pay attention to Hague Service Convention cases.* Last Friday, a big one came down the pike: the Supreme Court has granted Certiorari in Water Splash, Inc. v. Menon, a Texas case in which a defendant was served by mail in Quebec. Now, Canada doesn’t
My parents divorced around the time I finished high school.* The court ordered Dad to provide support to Mom for both me and my sister as long as we were full time students, even in college. I finished my bachelor’s degree about the same time my sister finished high school, and the old man decided
One does not simply walk into Mordor. Likewise, one does not simply read a treaty and call it good. In order to ascertain the full scope of an international agreement, you’ve got to dig deeper and look to the reservations a country makes when it signs on to a treaty.
At its core, a treaty
No, really. The Hague Convention is a myth. Likewise the Geneva Convention and the Vienna Convention. There are more than one of each, and referring to one of them that way is ambiguous. (Yes, yes, if you mention the full name earlier in a text, you’re okay to truncate.)
Of course, we lawyers love ambiguity—it’s
Write this down. There is no such thing as “The Hague Convention”.*
It’s like a unicorn or the Tooth Fairy or Rodents of Unusual Size.
Sorry, but it just doesn’t exist, so citing “The Hague Convention” is more than just sloppy vocabulary. That sloppiness can make the wheels fall off the procedural wagon,
Lawyers are nothing if not extremely picky about linguistic precision, and it makes us look like jerks. I am no different.
This is a huge issue in my marriage, as my wife will attest. Non-lawyers are driven bonkers when their lawyer spouses utter the words “define __________.” This may be why lawyers are so insistent
