Private Process Service
bradley holton
Private process service is the means by which a private individual with experience in serving process in Middle Tennessee will formally give important documents, especially legal documents, to a person or party. In a lawsuit, notice of the lawsuit is very important. This is why there are rules about service of process. Many times, people will use the sheriff to serve the documents on the other party or corporation because they are cheaper especially in Nashville. However, what do you do when the sheriff cannot find them to give them the papers?
A private process server will make multiple attempts at serving and will likely try to focus their attempts on times the person will actually be home, unlike the sheriff. A private process server will also be more likely to get someone to answer the door. Many people are scared to open the door if it is a police officer or sheriff, especially if they are avoiding the law and see that person holding papers. The sheriff is also overworked and will not wait long or try too hard, they will simply post a notice to call them about papers. This can have the adverse side effect of notifying the person that you are trying to serve them with the papers and tipping them off so that they can avoid it.
A private process server is also important and useful in emergency situations. The sheriff's office will sometimes take almost thirty days to serve someone with the legal papers. A private process server can offer a variety of time tables. For example, Holton Services has emergency 24 hour private process service for Middle Tennessee, 72 hour private process service, or the standard service which sees at minimum one attempt at service within a 7 day window. This is true for not only Nashville, but also surrounding counties such as Sumner, Wilson, Williamson, Rutherford, Cheatham, Robertson where many times the local Davidson County sheriff cannot even serve.
Private process is also advised any time you need to serve someone in a different county. This is because there is a huge delay if you need to use the out of county sheriff to serve your process out of Nashville, for example. Say you filed a lawsuit in Davidson County Circuit Court for a child support modification, and your ex has moved to Sumner County. You would need a private process server who can pick up in Nashville and serve in Middle Tennessee, such as Holton Services. If you tried to use the sheriff's office to serve process on your ex, you would have to pay at minimum $22 in a check or money order to the out of country sheriff. You would then need to arrange for the clerk (if you are lucky for people representing yourself) to send the service packet out to the sheriff in Sumner County who would then finally attempt to serve process on your Nashville legal papers in Sumner County. This can easily take more than thirty days, at which point your Show Cause Order for the hearing to modify the support will have lapsed and you will have to reset everything because it took so long to get served. That entire situation would have been avoided if you had paid just $40 more for the private process server.
Private process service is a very important tool used by lawyers to make sure their litigation moves quickly and expediently and that service is done right. It is not an area of legal practice that lawyers skimp on for a reason, and this is why lawyers use private process to serve their complaints.
Do you need excellent private process service in Middle Tennessee? Call us at (615)499-6522 and ask us about our experienced private process servers and options. We service Nashville Davidson County and Middle Tennessee. Let our relationships with the clerks and local law offices help serve you with your private process needs.