Before I dove into the lucrative and jet-set career of being a freelance writer and editor, I spent about 15 years serving divorces, evictions, lawsuits, and other good news. My wife used to call it “delivering rainbows and sunshine” to people. I’d spend all day long driving around the county making new friends.
It wasn’t nearly as much fun as it sounds.
My Life as a Process Server
Prior to this career move, I’d worked in security management for several years. I reached a point in that field where there were three main options available to me.
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1) Keep climbing the corporate ladder, which sounded about as much fun as head lice.
2) Go into law enforcement, which required certified education that I didn’t possess.
3) Become a private detective, which involved passing a test and paying a fee.
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Solving cases sounded fun, and I’d read that you could make some pretty serious bank doing so. After giving it a go as a solo agency for a little while, I signed on with another outfit that had been in business for quite a while and had a stellar reputation. While the agency owner did a brisk trade in actual detective work, the agency’s bread and butter was process service. Duringmy time with them, I served several thousand papers.
What Is Service of Process?
If you sue someone, you need to notify them that they’re being sued, right? Service of process is the official way that happens. Speaking in very general terms, service of process involves physically delivering a copy of the required paperwork to the party or parties named in the action. Think of the process server as a neutral third-party, someone with no skin in the game, who ensures proper notification is completed.
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Sounds simple enough, yeah? As is the case with many types of jobs, never tell the process server, “This one’s gonna be easy!” That’s a sure-fire way to jinx the whole damn thing.
Divorces
I served a lot of divorces over the years. The reactions were interesting. Many of the women I served became very upset and were seemingly surprised that hubby was pulling the pin. On the other hand, many of the guys I served knew it was coming and said thanks.
One woman flat-out told me that she didn’t believe in divorce. While I admired the conviction, I had to wonder how that was going to play out in court.
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Occasionally, we’d receive instructions from the attorney to be notified immediately when the husband was served. This was so that their client, usually the wife, could take evasive action. For example, we’d serve the husband at work, which was often preferable because there was a lower chance of a scene. We’d then notify the wife so she could grab her suitcase and head to her mother’s home until things calmed down.
This usually worked out well. However, a few scummy lawyers started making it a practice to cull through the divorce filings each day. They’d send a letter to the Respondent in each case, offering to represent them. If this letter arrived before the guy had been served, it could get ugly for the wife. When I left the process service world, I think this sort of solicitation was being hotly debated by the county’s bar association.
Evictions
One time, I was serving eviction papers on a townhouse. Standing at the front door, I knew nobody was living there, but I still had to go through the routine. After knocking and ringing the bell, I checked my watch to note the time. That’s when I caught a faint sound coming from inside. I could hear water running. Turns out, the tenants had bailed in the middle of the night several weeks prior to my visit. But before leaving, they’d plugged every sink and turned on the faucets. This experience is reason #597 why I’ll never be a landlord.
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Another time, I served papers on a couple who were renting a house. The landlord happened to show up while I was there. The tenants refused to open the door, hollering at us to leave. The landlord gently but persistently kicked at the bottom of the door, over and over and over. Eventually, the tenants called the police, claiming we were harassing them. Once the officer arrived, I introduced myself and told him what we were doing. When the tenants opened the door for him, I leaned in and served them, then went home.
Sometimes you have to get creative. We had one eviction where getting the tenant served was proving problematic. Fortunately, we learned that the tenant had a service call scheduled with an electrician. We arranged to meet the electrician at the unit and stood next to the door as he knocked. Once the tenant opened the door to let him in, I stepped to the door myself with the papers. She tried to slam the door in my face, but I stuck my work boot out to keep it from closing. I tossed the papers inside and went on my way, with her casting aspersions upon my entire family line as I went.
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Is Anybody Home?
After doing the work for a while, and with other servers backing me up on this, you develop a sort of sixth sense for whether a home is occupied or not. A place can be fully furnished inside and feel empty while you’re standing at the door. The opposite is also true. There were several occasions when I knew someone was there, but they wouldn’t come to the door or respond. Later on, we learned they were indeed standing there, just waiting for me to leave.
Fun fact: the peephole in the door works both ways. While there are a few gadgets you can buy that allow you to see a full view through a peephole when you’re standing on the outside, they aren’t absolutely necessary. With just the naked eye, you can see movement behind the door.
And hey, while we’re on the subject, don’t leave young children home alone and just tell them not to answer the door. Guess what? They will answer the door, and when the person who knocked asks to speak to a grown-up, the child will freak out. This doesn’t end well for anyone involved.
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Special Requests
From time to time, a client might ask for something out of the ordinary. I lost count of how many clients wanted their soon-to-be ex served on their birthday, anniversary, or Valentine’s Day. As a rule, as a process server, we refused such requests. Being served with divorce papers is stressful enough. There’s no sense tossing more fuel on the fire, especially when the server is the one who will probably be facing the heat.
Then there was the time a “sovereign citizen” came into our office, wanting to hire me to serve papers for a lawsuit he’d just filed. When I asked him how he was able to use a court system that he had declared himself exempt from, I think his brain short-circuited.
Even adoption papers need to be served from time to time, which was actually a lot of fun. Parents would sometimes ask to snap a photo of me “serving” the infant they were adopting to commemorate the occasion.
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Costs of Being a Process Server
I realized early on that wear and tear on my vehicle was happening at a much higher rate than ever before. Granted, I wasn’t making a ton of money with this gig, so I couldn’t afford a truly nice car. But even so, we burned through vehicles like crazy. I averaged about 35,000 miles a year. These weren’t freeway miles, either. They were two-lane highways, city streets, and rural back roads. One brake job a year, at a minimum, plus tires about every two years.
Like mail carriers, we worked no matter what the weather brought. Many times, I feared I was going to get stuck in someone’s driveway right after serving them divorce papers. There were several white-knuckle commutes where I just followed the tire tracks in front of me and prayed that the person ahead of me didn’t land in a ditch.
The biggest toll, though, was psychological. When you spend all day, every day, delivering bad news to people, the job quickly becomes a whole lot of not fun. It paid the bills, though, and made for some interesting stories.
