Another statement we hear regularly from colleagues who very legitimately seek to save costs– and others who just want to shortcut the process in a super-cheap, super-quick way without worrying about proper procedure:
We’re going to serve alternatively instead of using the Hague.
Impossible to let that one go by without some discussion. Why? Because
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
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
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
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
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
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.
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.
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
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
