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

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

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.

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