The Truth About Difficult Serves Nobody Talks About
Here's the truth nobody puts in the brochure. Most difficult serves aren't hard because the person is some criminal mastermind. They're hard because the server showed up blind. Wrong time, wrong door, no idea what the person looks like. Then they knock five times and call it diligence.
I used to do 30 or 40 serves a day when I built my process serving company in Northern California. You don't survive that pace by knocking and hoping. You survive it by getting people on the first attempt, or the second attempt a couple hours later. That's the whole game.
And here's the other thing nobody says out loud: most people you serve are decent. It's a bell-shaped curve. A few crazy ones on one end, a few really good people on the other who almost never get served, and everybody in the middle is just your average Joe. They're not trying to hurt anybody. They're avoiding a problem, and you're the problem standing on the porch.
It starts before you ever leave
Four questions. I asked them so much my clients probably got sick of me. Do they work? What time do they work? What kind of car do they drive? Do you have a picture of them?
Get those answered and you can serve almost anybody on the first attempt. Why? Because if I know when they work, I know when they're moving. The best way to get people is when they're going from one place to another. It really is.
If you take jobs through Mighty Process Server, put those answers right in the job notes the minute the client sends them. Then they're sitting in the job record when you pull up, not buried in an email thread from last Tuesday.
Don't skip the picture, and don't trust the pretty one. I once drove 30 minutes to a woman's house to serve a restraining order, and her car wasn't even there. It was sitting in front of the radiology department where she worked. Her brand new Audi was all over her Instagram. If I'd scrolled her social first, I would have just sat at her work. When they brought her up front, she was about four feet tall, with brown hair instead of blonde. The only photo that actually looked like her was the one of her getting into that Audi on her way to work.
So look for the in-person look. Usually that's a photo somebody else tagged them in, not a filtered selfie. I'm telling you, the real person is always a little shorter, a little chubbier, and more pale than you imagined.
The stalking method
I call it the stalking method. I know, it's not the best word, because stalking is an actual legal term. But that's what it is. You know where they live, you know where they work, and you show up where they're going to be before they get there.
Say she starts a 4:00 shift at the hospital and lives 15 minutes away. Don't knock at noon. Go sit at the house at 3:30, because she's walking out to that driveway sometime between 3:30 and 3:50. I always offer about a 15-minute stakeout for free anyway. Why would I come back if I didn't have to?
Same thing at the other end of the shift. She gets off at 4:00? I'm not showing up at 4:15. She's gone. I'm there at 3:45, parked a couple cars down where I can see her walk out. Maybe it took me 30 minutes. That beats coming back five times to knock on a door while the people inside decide whether they feel like answering.
Let me be clear on one thing. I'm not following anybody around town. I'm waiting at an address I already know, and the second they show up, I serve them. Following people around is surveillance, and in a lot of places that takes a private investigator license. Check what your state requires before you ever try it.
The stalking method works, I promise you.
The flutter, and the serve I still regret
Sometimes you get one split second. The door opens, you've identified them, they've been dodging you, and that door is about to shut. That's when I use what I call the flutter. You hold the packet by the staple and toss it so it floats. Do it right and it'll fly a good 4 or 5 feet before it drops. "Julie?" "No." It's in the air before the door closes, and I'm already walking away. Then I go back to social media and make sure the person at the door really looked like her. If she didn't, I've got more work to do.
The flutter is for a closing door. It is not for showing off, and I learned that the hard way at a little gas station in Redding, California.
I handed a guy his papers and asked if he was who I thought he was. He got rude and said no, so I told him, "Look, these are yours. You've got to show up on this court date." He chucked the packet at my head hard enough that I was bleeding. Instead of just leaving, I picked it up and fluttered it back at him to be dramatic. His wife was yelling at me to get out, he was yelling that he was calling the police, so I went and sat in my car and called them myself. I'd just been assaulted.
It was the city police, not the sheriff. The officer went in, came back out, and said the guy wanted to press charges against me. I told him this wasn't one citizen against another. I was on an errand of the court, serving legal process. Didn't matter. I walked away with a citation for trespassing.
Here's my mistake. I didn't go to court. I figured it would get thrown out. Later, after I moved to New Mexico, I applied for a concealed carry permit and it got kicked back. Bench warrant out of Shasta County. Are you freaking kidding me?
What I should have done, the second I got that citation, was drive straight to the station and ask for the sergeant or lieutenant. "I just served legal documents, I was assaulted, and your officer cited me. That's not how this works." And then I should have shown up on the court date no matter what. Learn from my mistake.
The bigger lesson is simpler. Once they have the papers, you're done. There's only pain in sticking around. And if somebody says they're calling the police, get to a safe distance and call dispatch yourself first. Tell them you're a process server, you just served somebody, and they said they'd call. That covers you.
"You again?"
City police mostly don't understand service of process. The sheriff's department does. Getting the sheriff's department on your side is one of the best things you can do.
I drove way out to a big country property one evening, middle of nowhere, getting dark, to serve a young woman. Her dad came out in his boxers and told me to get off his property. I could see her through the window. Legally, I should have left. I'd driven a long way, and I told him I wasn't leaving until she came out, and to go ahead and call the sheriff. He asked what would happen if he just came out with his gun instead. Don't do what I did there.
The deputy who pulled up already knew me from another call. She took one look and said, "You again? You're all over the map." Her captain had already told her that serving process is the sheriff's job too, and to help me whenever I needed it. She walked over, talked to the dad, and a couple seconds later the daughter came out. The deputy handed her the papers while I watched and asked if I needed her to sign anything. Nope. I saw her receive it.
Make it your business to know the deputies, the courthouse security, the bailiffs, all of them.
If you're the one hiring the server
Attorneys and firms, this part is for you. A difficult serve is usually decided before your server ever gets in the car. Send the four answers with the job: where they work, what hours, what they drive, and a real photo. A tagged picture beats a headshot every time. If you've got none of that, say so up front so your server can price the extra work and plan for it instead of knocking blind at noon.
That's a big reason I built Mighty Process Server the way I did. You get an instant quote, so the price is clear before the job starts, and you're not playing phone tag to find out what a stakeout costs. The directory covers 171,226 cities and 4,530 regions with international address search built in, so even if your evasive defendant fled to another state or another country, finding a server near them isn't guesswork. Servers can upload worldwide pricing with the global fee schedule template, which means an overseas serve comes back as a real number instead of a shrug.
Every job keeps its own record with each attempt, the time, the photos and the notes, and you can watch status on a private client dashboard instead of emailing "any update?" When the serve is done, the affidavit can be generated and signed right from the server's phone, and with the Mighty Notary integration it can be e-notarized the same day. No driving across town to find a notary while your hearing date creeps closer.
One more thing on timing. Holidays are a gift on a hard serve. People come home for Thanksgiving and the end of the year, they keep regular hours, and they're not expecting anybody. If your hearing is in January, don't sit on the papers until after New Year's. Get the job in now.
The part your client actually cares about
None of this matters if the attorney never hears about it. I once heard an attorney vent about the server he'd just fired. "He's got one job. Serve the paper, sign the proof of service, and communicate status. That's it." Once you say "received," the ball's in your court until that proof of service is back in their hands. Plan the serve, make it count, and tell them what happened. Every attempt logged, every photo saved, and the status where your client can see it without calling you.
Be safe out there.
Stay sharp. Stay informed. Live Mighty!
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