The Benefits Of Accepting Service

I am not an attorney, I am a Judgment Referral Expert. This is my opinion about why every party, even debtors and "wrongdoers" should not try to avoid being served legal papers.

Getting served, either by certified mail, or in person, is usually not a sign of good news. However, getting served is similar to having a cavity in your tooth. Ignoring either situation will almost certainly cost you more time, hassle, and "pain" over the long term.

One reason to accept legal service is that it simplifies your life. Whatever is, is. How you handle what it is, is what counts. If your tooth hurts, get it handled. When you get served with a lawsuit complaint or an order of the court, it's a good idea to get it handled.

If someone tries to serve lawsuit papers to you, you have choices.

1) Accept or sign for the service of legal papers, and sometime later answer the lawsuit with a (simple or strong) written answer, as instructed on the paperwork served on you.

For very little money, you can find and consult with a lawyer for half an hour, by finding your local State Bar's web site. Then show up at the court on time, on the specified date.

You now have some control of the situation. You might persuade a judge to reduce the size of the judgment against you, or try to settle with the plaintiff, or prove the plaintiff wrong in court, and win and may end up owing nothing.

2) Accept or sign for the legal service, and then ignore it. Do not show up in court, so you will have no control of the situation. This results in a default judgment against you, where the entity suing you usually gets what they ask for in court.

3) Evade service. Force the plaintiff to spend more money. Always look over your shoulder. Be suspicious of everyone and everything. Accept that you might ultimately fail to evade legal service. Perhaps you can be sub-served, by serving your spouse, roommate, or co-worker.

Perhaps the plaintiff will have you served at work, or at your friend's house or a restaurant. Perhaps a PI will follow you around, and then you will then get served.

The problem with evading legal service is you end up creating a full time job of evading legal service. Also, the plaintiff will learn a lot more about your private life than if you did not evade their service attempts.

Even if you are successful in avoiding personal service, you may be served by publishing your name in a newspaper (how old fashioned), and then get a default judgment against you.

When an entity owns a judgment against you, and is trying to serve debtor examination papers on you, it's best to accept the service, and then try to settle with or make payments to your creditor and/or doing what the court has ordered, and then show up and answer questions and/or produce documents.

If you avoid the service, all extra costs incurred by the creditor attempting to get you served, are added to your judgment debt. The harder you are to serve, the more you will owe. Also, evading service might result in the creditor using another way of enforcing the judgment against you.

When an entity has a judgment against them and you (a third party) are served, because you as a third party, know about or possess or control the assets of the debtor, it's much better to accept legal service.

Then discuss this situation with the debtor, to help or encourage them solve their problem, so you will never be served again on a matter related to the debtor's judgment debt.


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Mark D. Shapiro - Judgment Referral Expert - http://www.JudgmentBuy.com
- where Judgments go to get bought for CASH or Enforced!