Service of Process Abroad

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He’s grumpy. But he calls the shots. Not some smart-mouthed fellow from out of town.  And he certainly doesn’t cotton to your unfamiliarity with the rules, counselor.

[UPDATE, December 17, 2020… a follow-up/parallel post, Serve EVERYTHING that’s required.]

This practice gives me a chance to work with some great translation providers.  I go back to them regularly because they not only provide quality work, but they’re also ethical in dealing with clients, and that means the world to me.  Not all providers are that way, but my people are rock solid.  As such, my people don’t mind when I say to a caller, “hey, you can keep your translation costs down by only serving what is required by venue rules.”  That matters to my clients (all lawyers & law firms) who need to serve abroad. 
Continue Reading Only serve what is REQUIRED.

The office of New Hampshire’s Secretary of State. Royalbroil via Wikimedia Commons.

A slew of cases have come across my desk lately, involving plaintiff attorneys who have ostensibly already served foreign* defendants via statutory agents in the forum state.  After plaintiff’s counsel spends several thousand dollars to defeat a motion to quash, most of them conclude that it might have just been cheaper in the first place to serve the defendant in the foreign jurisdiction instead of via the statutory agent. 
Continue Reading Statutory agents for foreign defendants? Hague Service could still be cheaper.

I say all the time that we’re not building rockets here.  But we are building a ship of sorts, and a leaky ship means lost cargo, and perhaps the inability to reach port.  As of October 1, 2020, serving process in the Republic of the Philippines is subject to the strictures of the Hague Service Convention, regardless of which U.S. or Canadian venue is hearing the matter.
Continue Reading How to Serve Process in the Philippines (updated 2025)

Oh yaaah?

At least once a week, my office fields the question “what else do I need to serve under Hague?”– or some variation on that theme.

It’s a highly pertinent question because most litigators aren’t familiar with the Hague Service Convention and its various requirements; if they were, I wouldn’t have such a beautiful niche practice, so I truly cannot complain.  The question has a simple answer, but one that leads to complexities driven by geography. 
Continue Reading Keeping Translation Costs Down, Part Three

St. Stephen’s Cathedral, Vienna.

I say all the time that we aren’t building rockets here.  But we are building a ship of sorts, and if the vessel is leaky, we won’t make it to port and the captain will be grumpy.  Woe be his kids who are running around town singing nonsense songs and wearing drapes.*

Do it the right way, and your journey is smooth.  Serving process in Austria is subject to the strictures of the Hague Service Convention, regardless of which U.S. or Canadian venue is hearing the matter– and that looks to make things easier– and significantly cheaper– than it was before.Continue Reading How to Serve Process in Austria (updated 2025)

Way back in March, 2017, I posted a blurb about the limitations on serving offshore parent companies via their U.S. subsidiaries.  In short, I argue, you can’t simply serve a U.S. subsidiary and call it effective on the foreign parent.  You have to have a compelling reason to pierce the corporate veil.

This is basic 1L Civ Pro stuff.  It’s just too bad they never even mentioned service of process in either semester of Civ Pro in law school– jurisdiction and joinder were far too complex to allow for coverage of the basics, I guess.* 
Continue Reading Guess what– you still can’t serve via a subsidiary (unless…)

Native languages of extreme northern North America and Siberia have several different words for “snow”.  I went to Alaska on a cruise once, but I’m definitely not qualified to translate.

Hague Service Convention requests constitute 99% of my practice– that’s a literal statistic.*  Easily half of them are sent to countries that haven’t caved in to the pressure (good for them) and made English an official language.  As such, the lion’s share must be translated into German or Italian or French or Korean… you get the idea.  In most instances, my clients just have me take care of the whole shooting match, from soup to nuts.  Occasionally, though, a firm or solo lawyer has a relationship with somebody who purports to translate legal documents as a matter of course, so they prefer to handle the linguistic work themselves.  To be sure, we’re not a translation provider– we’re a law firm– so if you want to do your own thing, I don’t object.

But I do disclaim the heck out of it.Continue Reading Yeah, buddy, they do check translations.

Yeah, Toy Story came out 25 years ago.  But you can catch it today on Disney Plus.  Sing along with Randy Newman.  Yes, I know you’re 54 years old and your kids are grown.  Watch it anyway.  It’ll do your heart some good.

One of the biggest fears my clients face is dismissal under a forum court’s deadline for service.  In federal court, that means 90 days, and in most states, it means anywhere from 60 to 120.  They’re often frantic about the possibility that some grumpy judge is going to dismiss them.  I strive mightily to put their minds at ease.

Fear not, brave Counselor.  You’ve got a friend in Rule 4(m).

Continue Reading You’ve got a friend in 4(m).

Phillip Burton Federal Building, San Francisco. Sam Wheeler via Wikimedia Commons.

Ah… faith in humanity restored.  Just a bit.

In a rant yesterday (NO, 4(f)(3) is NOT co-equal to Hague channels!), I took issue with the impossibly bad logic in another order approving electronic service on a Chinese defendant under Rule 4(f)(3).  Simply put, S.D. Cal. got it wrong, the latest in a string of cases steeped in impossibly bad logic.  But at the other end of the Golden State, Magistrate Judge Alex Tse, who has been on the bench a mere six months, got it right.Continue Reading N.D. Cal. gets it right!