In a single day last week, Week Ten of America’s Covid-19 quarantine, I fielded essentially the same oddly segmented inquiry from three different lawyers across the country.  A rather disconcerting inquiry, to say the least. “Hey, Aaron.  I’ve got an overseas defendant to serve.  I’ve talked to some process servers who tell me that you can’t personally serve anybody overseas right now, so I should just serve by mail.” When I interject to tell them…

My inbox is oddly flooded this morning.  Not with the usual client inquiries (it’s a holiday, after all), but with the normal spate of promotional emails and law firm newsletters I’ve come to expect on most statutory days off.  Sure, we’ve commercialized the heck out of every holiday, but that’s happened for centuries.  For retailers and restaurants to market their wares and fares on such days becomes much less bothersome as I get older.  What…

Every once in a while, a colleague will call me with a story similar to this one: “A client just walked into my office three days ago with what looks to be a rock-solid case.  We can establish duty, breach, causation, and damages* without a whole lot of difficulty, but the defendants are in Beijing and Toronto.  The statute of limitation runs next week, so we’ve GOT to get them served before then or we’re…

U.S. Embassy, Bangkok, Thailand (State Department photo) The most frequent sort of question to hit my inbox of late has been from lawyers all over the country, looking for a referral to foreign counsel.  Foreign in the “you need a passport to go there” sense, rather than in the “across State Line Road” sense. Hey, Aaron, do you have anybody who can help me review a contract with a choice* of Greek law? My…

Civil defendants in federal court are obliged to waive service.  All of them, with the notable exception of various governments.  I give you Rule 4(d)(1): An individual, corporation, or association that is subject to service under Rule 4(e), (f), or (h) has a duty to avoid unnecessary expenses of serving the summons.* (Emphasis added.)  Seems pretty simple to me.  Unless the defendant is something like the National Weather Service or the Warwickshire branch of the Ministry …

In order for the Hague Service Convention (HSC) to govern the legal formalities of notifying defendants of claims against them, you’ve got to know where the defendant can be found.  An address is critical to service anywhere, on any defendant, but it can be particularly challenging when it comes to serving U.S. servicemembers stationed abroad– as well as when it comes to serving their dependents* or civilian support staff stationed with them.  It’s especially daunting…

No, really.  I’ve argued ’til I’m blue in the face that Hague mail service is a bad idea.  Sure, it might be perfectly valid from a legal perspective, but factually… oy vey, you got problems, friend. But even the legal perspective just became murky.  A few minutes ago, I got an email from the good folks at FedEx, conveying a message that I’m sure UPS and DHL will send out shortly. We want to…