Baggage claim at Schiphol. Image: kevingessner, via Wikimedia Commons.

(This really does apply to Hague Service.  I promise.)

I flew into this mess on July 24th at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam.  We sat on the tarmac for two hours waiting for a gate to clear for us, and another half hour at the gate waiting for a qualified jetway driver to provide a means of egress.  Then the real fun started.  Three more hours in the baggage claim area, before coming to the unfortunate conclusion that Icelandair had somehow misplaced my gear.  No worries, I thought.  They’ll get this mess sorted out and bring my suitcase to my hotel in The Hague tomorrow.  My most important meeting isn’t until the next day.

Whoa, was I wrong.  Continue Reading Hague Service Certificates… a bit like waiting for lost luggage.

Go to Holland and escape that brutal July heat that typifies life in Kansas City, I thought.  It’s always nice in the Netherlands.  That’s why its people are so happy.

Ahem, not this week– although the people here are still just as friendly as ever.  The typically bright and sunny Dutch personality hasn’t waned this week, despite the hottest day EVER in the Netherlands (102.5 Fahrenheit yesterday)* and the fuel system fiasco at Schiphol (Amsterdam) Airport, which I landed smack in the middle of on Wednesday.**

Continue Reading Live from The Hague… The very steamy Hague.

Yeah, they had to submit a customs declaration.

On Saturday (July 20th), we celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of mankind’s giant leap, our footfall on the dusty surface of the moon.  Just about every blogger over the age of forty made mention of it last week or over the weekend.  I didn’t, because as great an achievement as landing on the lunar surface was, the greater goal was achieved at 12:50pm EDT on July 24, 1969.  The men who walked on the moon returned safely to the earth, fulfilling President Kennedy’s mandate to do so.  I am very fortunate to have been born during the Apollo era, and even more fortunate to have grown up during an age when space shots were still awe-inspiring.

Continue Reading The Ultimate International Story– and a Call for Heroes

Courtroom 1, Supreme Court of the United Kingdom.

The most critical question in serving a defendant is “WHERE?”  More specifically…

Where is the defendant located?
Where can you serve him/her/it?
Where must you serve him/her/it?
Where in the world is Carmen San Diego?

Continue Reading “Where?” is critical, Episode 1: The British Isles

“The Blue Marble”, by the crew of Apollo 17, on December 7, 1972.

The most critical question in serving a defendant is “WHERE?”  More specifically…

Where is the defendant located?

Where can you serve him/her/it?

Where must you serve him/her/it?

Where in the world is Carmen San Diego?*

Continue Reading “Where?” is critical… an introduction.

An Alsatian calendar from long ago (it was part of Germany then).  Bibliothèque nationale et universitaire of Strasbourg, via Wikimedia Commons.

Last week, I went on a bit of a rant— my thinking was sparked by a highly informative post by Dan Harris at the China Law Blog, in which he rebooted an older column in Four Essential Principles of Emerging Market Success.  His original (2004) commentary is even more prescient today as manufacturers and investors shift away from China and seek new opportunities in other emerging economies like Vietnam, Turkey, and Indonesia, just to name a trio.  As it turned out, when I read Dan’s update, I had just seen a prospective client walk away from a discussion because he didn’t like the bad news I had to give him.  That news went to the heart of Dan’s thoughts on doing business anywhere abroad, namely: Things will be different. Very different.

Continue Reading Things take longer overseas. Get used to it.

Supreme Court of the Republic of Cyprus. Seksen iki yüz kırk beş, via Wikimedia Commons.

I say all the time that we aren’t building rockets here.  But we are building a ship of sorts, and a leaky vessel means the cargo may not make it to its destination.  Serving process in Cyprus is subject to the strictures of the Hague Service Convention, regardless of which U.S. or Canadian venue is hearing the matter.  Cyprus has a rather complicated history, even in recent decades– and the island has been divided between Greek and Turkish ethnicities in the south and northeast, respectively, since the 1960s and ’70s.  Though not as bitter as several decades ago, the division nonetheless remains, and service in the Turkish region may not be as straightforward as in the Greek.  The following focuses mainly on the Greek portion of Cyprus, although Greek and Turkish officials may cooperate to effect service on behalf of foreign applicants.

Continue Reading How to Serve Process in Cyprus (updated 2025)

NASA photo.

With all the America-First hype swirling about the country, it’s never been more important to remind lawyers that things simply don’t work over there the same way they work here.  Global commerce isn’t going away, folks.  Tariffs notwithstanding, we still need goods from abroad to carry on our daily lives, so it’s still critical to understand the ways in which foreign systems operate.  We still have to sell our stuff abroad, or our economy will collapse in short order.  We still have to get all the K-Pop we can absorb.

Continue Reading Things are different overseas. Get used to it.

Huawei’s leadership respond to Trump ban.

Big in the news of late:  Huawei and the Trump Administration’s ban.

Continue Reading Chinese Companies and the FSIA

Charles Evans Whittaker Federal Courthouse, KCMO. Voidxor, via Wikimedia Commons.

I took Civ Pro from a giant.

When I say giant, I mean in the figurative sense, because he’s only 5’7″ or so, but this diminutive fellow remains among the most talented and effective teachers I’ve ever had.  He inspired me to wear bow ties, and illustrated the myriad types of joinder with a shopping bag full of beanie babies (I’m not joking).*  I grasped counterclaims and cross claims and third party claims pretty quickly– about the only things I grasped quickly as a 1L– because of an effective teaching tool.

Continue Reading Notice pleading, y’all.