When you need legal documents served on someone, you need to find the best process server for the job. Not all process servers are created equal, so it’s important to know what to look for when choosing one. Here are six tips to help you choose the best process server for your needs.
Find Out What Services are Offered
The first thing that you are going to want to do when choosing the best process server for your needs is to determine the types of services they offer. It will be very difficult to choose the best process server if you aren’t sure what they offer, as well as what your needs are, so, this is something that you’ll need to determine.
Some of the services that process servers could offer include;
- Doing civil background checks, as well as criminal checks. They might use digital fingerprinting, such as that one offered by the Winnipeg fingerprint
- Doing hand-delivery courthouse service.
- Using skip tracing to find witnesses.
- Doing courthouse research to get information.
- Offering legal courier service on the same day.
Most processed servers will be able to serve small claims, papers, motions, legal documents like summons, writs, eviction notices, subpoenas, and more.
What Professional Credentials Do They Have?
The next thing that you’ll have to take into consideration when choosing a process server is the professional credentials they have, as well as the knowledge that they have in the field. Depending on what you need to be done will determine the amount of knowledge and experience that is necessary.
You might be wondering what types of questions you should ask a process server in your pursuit of finding one. Some of these questions could include;
- What professional credentials do you have?
- Of the state requirements that are necessary to be a process server, do you meet all of them?
- Are you aware of the proper service rules as well as the current regulations?
More than this, it’s important that you are aware of the requirements for a process server to serve legal documents since if legal documents are served by an unlicensed process server, they will be invalid.
Company With High Success Rate
One of the most important factors that you’ll have to take into consideration when choosing a process server is the success rate that they have. Naturally, this makes sense since you don’t want to choose a process server that doesn’t end up serving the papers.
If you are interviewing a potential applicant, then there are a few questions that you can ask;
- How do you handle a situation when a person is evading service?
- What is the procedure if you are not able to deliver a document successfully? Has this ever happened?
- What is the average turnaround time for the delivery of papers?
In addition to a high success rate, you’ll also want to choose a completely honest process server.
Company With Experience
Something that is highly suggested is choosing a process server that has been in the industry for quite some time. This is dependent on your budget, since the more experience a process server has, the more they’ll charge for their services. To determine the amount of experience that the process server has, here are a few questions you could ask;
- How many years has your business been serving papers?
- Are there any specific legal documents that your company specializes in?
- Are you working exclusively with any law firms at the moment?
- How long on average have the employees at this company been working in this field?
The amount of experience that you require will also be determined by the reason you are looking for a process server. The higher profile and urgent the service is, the more experience you will need.
Research the Reputation
Finally, the last thing that you should consider when choosing a process server is the reputation of the company or the process server themselves. Many of the questions above have touched on the types of services that the process server provides, as well as how long they’ve been working in the field, and you can check out these process servers Vancouver wa to get an idea of how professionals in this field do their job. But when it comes to finding out the reputation, you’ll want to find out how good of a job they have done in the past.
A few things to do to ascertain this would be;
- Asking for a list of references for previous clients.
- Doing research online to see what the general public opinion of the company is.
- Finding out by the company itself why anyone would have anything bad to say about them.
- Asking what makes their company better than another.