Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today we're really digging into something specific in civil litigation, something that can, well, cause a lot of headaches.
Service of process. If you're involved in the legal system, maybe running a law firm, you're always wrestling with this, aren't you? Keeping costs down, but making sure everything's, you know, legally sound.
So the big question we're tackling, looking at these specialized guides from Louisiana. It's something folks there really grapple with. Look, do I really need to shell out for a professional process server, or can I handle this cheaper?
[00:00:31] Speaker B: That's exactly it. And we're zeroing in specifically on Louisiana here, looking at the official alternatives you can use to serve legal documents, you know, your summons, complaints, subpoenas. The rules are super strict. So just to be clear, this isn't legal advice. Our aim is just to give you, the listener, a really solid comparison. The alternatives versus the pros. We want you to get the real picture, understand the risks if you try to cut corners.
[00:00:55] Speaker A: Okay, so our mission today.
Unpack the good, the bad, and the, frankly, sometimes hidden dangers of the two main ways people try to avoid using a dedicated professional process server in Louisiana. Let's kick off with the one that probably feels the most official.
Right. When people think soothing papers, they often picture law enforcement, don't they? You take your documents down to the local sheriff or constable, pay the fee, and, well, you assume a deputy handles it. The big pro here is obvious. It's official, it's established, it's definitely a legally valid way to serve someone. Looks good on the surface.
[00:01:30] Speaker B: It does look good initially, but that's where you hit the first major snag. A bottleneck, really. See, while the sheriff's office can serve civil papers, it's just absolutely not their main job. Not even close. They're dealing with crime, emergencies, traffic. Everything else comes first. Your papers, they basically go into a big pile. A pilot always takes a back seat.
[00:01:48] Speaker A: A big pile. Okay, so that means delays, real delays for the person filing.
But look, if I may be a smaller firm or just an individual trying to save, say, 50 bucks, isn't waiting a bit may be worth it? What's the real harm beyond just waiting?
[00:02:04] Speaker B: Well, the harm is sort of twofold. It's the time, yes, but it's also the lack of persistence. Our sources are pretty clear it can easily take days, sometimes weeks, before a deputy even makes one attempt. And here's the kicker. Those attempts, often just during standard nine to five business hours. So think about it. Maybe a deputy tries. I Don't know. Tuesday at 10am, person's not home, or maybe they think someone's dodging them. The deputy usually just moves on next task.
[00:02:30] Speaker A: Wait, hold on. So maybe one or two tries. And if the defendant is tricky to find, there's no like, special follow up?
[00:02:36] Speaker B: Not typically, no. The deputy just doesn't have the bandwidth or frankly the mandate to hang around or use special resources to find someone who might be actively avoiding service. If they can't serve it relatively easily. The papers just get returned, sent back to you, the filer. And this could be weeks after you first drop them off.
[00:02:52] Speaker A: Okay, let's unpack. What? That actually means. The papers come back, you've already paid the fee, you've lost what, weeks, crucial time on the legal calendar, and now you're back to square one. Maybe you even have to pay another fee just to try again with a different method. That lost time. I mean, if you're up against a deadline, like a statute of limitations or you need an injunction fast.
That sounds disastrous.
[00:03:13] Speaker B: It absolutely can be. Time is often the single most critical and, yeah, expensive element in litigation. So that thing you did to save a little money upfront, maybe 50, $100 on service, it can easily spiral. You end up spending thousands more in legal fees just because of delays, refiling, redrafting. It cancels out the savings real quick.
[00:03:34] Speaker A: Okay, so the sheriffs might be too slow. Not persistent enough.
That brings us to alternative number two. This is where you pick a private individual, yourself, maybe a paralegal you trust or a retired investigator, and the court officially appoints them. This feels like maybe a middle ground. You get some control over the speed, but the court gives it that official stamp.
[00:03:54] Speaker B: It does exist. Yeah, under Louisiana law. But the hoops you have to jump through procedurally, they're pretty significant.
This is where the system's own rules create, well, a lot of administrative drag. It's not just a casual ask.
[00:04:07] Speaker A: Okay, tell us about that. What's the actual procedure?
[00:04:09] Speaker B: So under the Louisiana Code of civil procedure, Article 1293, specifically, your attorney has to file a formal motion with the court. They have to name the specific person they want appointed, and critically, a judge has to actually sign an order approving that person before they can even attempt service. That's non negotiable.
[00:04:28] Speaker A: Wow, okay, that sounds like a real administrative headache right there. You're talking extra legal documents waiting for a judge's schedule.
[00:04:35] Speaker B: Exactly. Think about the time involved. Your attorney drafts the motion, files it, then you wait days, weeks for a judge's signature. All that Time adds up and it directly increases the client's legal bill. So any money you thought you were saving by using, say, a friend, it often just gets eaten up by the lawyer's time managing this whole appointment process.
[00:04:55] Speaker A: Okay, but let's say you jump through the hoops, the judge signs off, you've got your court appointed server. Now here's where it gets tricky, right?
Even with that court approval, you're completely banking on that specific person's skill and resources. Is the risk more about the legal paperwork or just them not knowing what they're doing?
[00:05:17] Speaker B: It's definitely both. But the risk from inexperience, it's huge. The person you appointed, they might have literally zero experience with the nitty gritty of service rules. Like who can they legally serve? What exactly do they need to say? When is service proper?
That lack of knowledge opens the door wide open for legal mistakes. Big ones.
[00:05:36] Speaker A: Give us an example. What kind of mistake could really mess things up?
[00:05:38] Speaker B: The absolute biggest one is the affidavit of service. That's the sworn legal document. The proof that the server have to fill out sign usually get notarized. If your court appointed person messes that up, maybe they get a date wrong, lists the wrong address, use the wrong method of service, that affidavit is defective. And what happens then? The defendant's lawyer can easily file what's called a motion to quash the service, basically asking the court to throw it out.
[00:06:01] Speaker A: And if that motion succeeds, if service.
[00:06:05] Speaker B: Gets quashed, it's like it never happened. The service is legally invalid. So if you were counting on that service maybe to get a default judgment because the defendant didn't respond, that judgment is now probably worthless, likely overturned on appeal. You're right back at the start needing to serve them all over again. And this time the court might be watching much more closely.
It's a massive setback, all potentially because of one small administrative slip up by someone inexperienced.
[00:06:32] Speaker A: And beyond the legal know how, they just lack the tools, right?
If the person you need to serve is actively trying to avoid getting the papers, your court appointed person, even if they're a decent investigator, generally probably doesn't have access to the kind of databases the bros use.
[00:06:49] Speaker B: That's a huge part of it. The specialized resources, they don't have the professional tools, especially for fine people who are hard to locate. But talking about something called skip tracing.
[00:06:57] Speaker A: Let'S pause on that term. Skip tracing sounds a bit mysterious for listeners who aren't, you know, legal eagles. What exactly is that?
[00:07:04] Speaker B: Skip tracing is basically the Specialized process of finding people who are, well, skipping out or are just hard to find. Professionals use sophisticated, often proprietary databases, things not available to the public or even most general PIs. It lets them quickly and legally find current addresses, maybe where someone works, other places where service can actually happen. If your court appointed person hits a wal wall, can't find the individual easily, Their only real option is to throw in the towel.
[00:07:33] Speaker A: Which means, you guessed it, another set of papers returned. More time, lost more money down the drain.
[00:07:39] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:07:39] Speaker A: Okay, so considering all these risks, the delays and lack of follow through with law enforcement, and then the procedural headaches and the serious risk of errors, plus lack of tools with the court appointed route, it starts to become really clear why most serious law firms just rely on dedicated professional process servers as the standard. It sounds like it's about efficiency. Sure, but also just avoiding massive potential problems.
[00:08:01] Speaker B: Absolutely. When you compare it to the professional standard, you see like four key advantages that directly address all the problems we've just talked about. This isn't just about being faster. It's really about minimizing your risk, your liability, and making sure your case starts on solid ground.
[00:08:16] Speaker A: All right, walk us through those four advantages from the source material. How do they tackle the efficiency and the legal security issues?
[00:08:23] Speaker B: Okay, first priority, it's simple. Serving papers is their only job. They aren't juggling emergencies or other duties. They start attempts almost immediately, often within hours of getting the documents, not weeks later.
Second, expertise. These folks are specialists. They live and breathe the Louisiana Rules of Civil procedure. They know exactly how, when, where service is valid, and critically, they know how to fill out that affidavit perfectly every single time. That eliminates that huge risk of getting service quashed over a technicality.
[00:08:54] Speaker A: Okay, so that covers the inexperienced server risk. But what about the problem we saw with the share of people being hard to find or avoiding service?
[00:09:02] Speaker B: That's point. Number advanced tools. If someone is being evasive, a professional doesn't just rely on, you know, a phone book lookup. They immediately use professional tools like the skip tracing we mentioned. To find the person quickly and legally often means getting service done in days, even on tough cases. And finally, number four, authorization. Professional process servers, the established ones are typically bonded and already authorized to serve papers anywhere in the state.
[00:09:29] Speaker A: Ah, that's a big one right there. So you skip that whole court appointment mess entirely. No drafting motions, no waiting for a judge's signature for every single case. That must save a ton of time and therefore attorney fees.
[00:09:41] Speaker B: Precisely. Avoiding that whole special court appointment process saves critical Time and, and it saves the client those extra legal fees for that administrative work.
So viewed that way, the professional option isn't really an extra cost. It's positioned as the most reliable and often most cost effective choice in the long run because it helps prevent those incredibly expensive delays and catastrophic errors.
[00:10:03] Speaker A: Right now, before we wrap up, we absolutely have to include the essential disclaimers. These come straight from the source material we looked at and they're non negotiable. First, the general info we've shared today, it is not legal advice, period. The rules around service of process, especially in a place like Louisiana, with its civil code tradition, are really complex. They can change.
[00:10:24] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. Critical point. We've just been outlining the comparisons and risks discussed in the guide we reviewed. If you listening right now are actually in a legal situation, or if you've been served with papers yourself, please, you must talk to a qualified attorney right away. Discuss your specific situation, your rights, your options. Don't base legal decisions on a general deep drive like this. Exactly. Our goal here was purely informational, to kind of shine a light on the system's friction points, the potential hassles in Louisiana if you try to use these more generalized alternatives instead of specialists. Hashtag outro.
[00:10:58] Speaker A: So we've laid out a pretty clear picture today, haven't we? On one side, you've got the alternatives. They might look cheaper up front, but you run into serious issues with speed and persistence. That's the sheriff. Or you face major procedural hurdles and the very real risk of legal errors because of lack of expertise and tools. That's the court appointed person.
[00:11:16] Speaker B: And then on the other side, the professional standard, it offers immediate priority, that guaranteed expertise, which avoids those devastating affidavit mistakes and the necessary resources like skip tracing to handle even difficult serves efficiently.
So what's the bigger takeaway here? You know, the real cost effectiveness when you're talking about specialized legal functions seems to hinge entirely on avoiding those much bigger downstream costs of delays and errors. It's this constant trade off, isn't it? Weighing that procedural hassle, the need for specialized tools and knowledge, against the lure of saving a few bucks right now.
[00:11:51] Speaker A: That's a great point. And that framework, that way of thinking, it doesn't just apply to serving papers, does it? Think about other really technical parts of, say, business operations or even complex construction. How often is the absolute cheapest option and actually the one carrying the highest risk of failure down the road because it lacks that dedicated focus or deep expertise, something to chew on if you want to dig deeper yourself, you could look up the actual text of that Louisiana Code of Civil Procedure, Article 1293. Or maybe research the standards for professional process servers where you are.
[00:12:23] Speaker B: Definitely worth considering. Thanks for tuning in to this deep dive.
[00:12:26] Speaker A: I'll catch you on the next one.
[00:12:27] Speaker B: Thanks for watching.
