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

[Author’s note:  this series distills the Convention as it applies to practitioners in the United States—it is not a definitive analysis of the treaty in a broader sense.  Call it a primer, if you will.  Parts One and Two focus on the treaty’s main operative articles, Part Three provides background, and Part Four, which follows

[Author’s note:  this series distills the Hague Service Convention as it applies to practitioners in the United States—it is not a definitive analysis of the treaty in a broader sense.Parts One and Two focus on the treaty’s main operative articles, Part Three, which follows here, provides a good bit of background, and Part Four delves

[Author’s note:  this series distills the Hague Service Convention as it applies to practitioners in the United States—it is not a definitive analysis of the treaty in a broader sense.  Parts One and Two focus on the treaty’s main operative articles, Part Three provides a bit of background, and Part Four delves into articles that

[Author’s note:  this series distills the Hague Service Convention as it applies to practitioners in the United States—it is not a definitive analysis of the treaty in a broader sense.  Parts One and Two focus on the treaty’s main operative articles, Part Three provides pertinent background, and Part Four delves into articles that, while important

[Covid-19 Update, 2020 and beyondService by mail just became an even worse idea… and it hasn’t truly improved much since the pandemic waned.  Signature requirements just aren’t adhered to like they used to be, and even where they are, it’s tough to actually discern who really signed for anything.]

At first glance,

Over the years, I’ve repeatedly had lawyer clients say to me, “I have to serve a defendant in (Country X), but I don’t want to do it through the Hague.  That’s just too much hassle.”

Ahem, sorry, I say to them.  You don’t have a choice in the matter.  But that doesn’t necessarily mean

[Although we’ve seen a couple of hopeful glimmers lately, I still recommend that my clients expect a full two years before receipt of proof, and even that might be optimistic.  The New York Times reports that Indian courts have a backlog of 50 million criminal and civil cases, positing that clearing the backlog will take

Photo by Henry Be on Unsplash

[Originally published at vikinglaw.us]

No, really.  There is truly no such thing.

There is urgency brought on by poor planning, poor execution, or being simply blindsided by a surprise issue.  There is a last minute realization that a foreign defendant must be joined,

[Originally published at vikinglaw.us.  An update on service in Korea generally can be found here.]

They literally catch fire.  Literally.  Not in a “using the word ‘literally’ to make a hyperbolic argument sound stronger than it is” sense.  The things emit flame, without warning and seemingly without reason.  The Samsung Galaxy Note