Process Server and Investigation
- +1 (405) 593-3515
- Info@ojpslegal.com
- 3111 West Wilshire Boulevard Oklahoma City, OK 73116 United States
Process Server and Investigation
Our expert team of attorneys and consultants will be glad to provide necessary legal assistance.
Process serving is much more difficult that many people realize. It is a legal profession fraught with danger, decisiveness, and technique. There is so much that process servers must learn and indeed master to become excellent at their craft, and it takes time on the job and training at private investigation and process serving schools to obtain these skills. Along the way, the best process servers near me not only gain contacts with attorneys, police officers, bailiffs, judges, and private eyes, but they also learn special investigative techniques like social media scans that can help them serve even the most difficult individuals.
Process servers help deliver court papers and other legal documents to all sorts of individuals, businesses, governmental agencies, etc. A process server thus gives the respondents/defendants notice that someone has filed a legal action against them that necessitates their response. This legal profession helps the wheels of justice turn, because without them the wheels of justice would slow down considerably.
Without process servers, sheriffs and their deputies would find themselves overwhelmed, and they are not always highly effective at serving people anyway. A sheriff’s deputy also goes out in uniform and can often scare people away from answering the door. This is especially true, if the defendant has warrants, is non-white, is an immigrant, and/or is wary of police and/or whites in general.
In addition, deputies usually only make one or two attempts, whereas the best process servers near me will often make three or four attempts on service to one defendant at one address. Thus, while often less expensive than their process server counterparts, clients do not normally get much in terms of high-quality service when they decide to hire a sheriff’s deputy instead of choosing to locate a process server to help them serve someone some court papers or other legal documents.
Deputies also do not serve at nighttime or on weekends, and this also make them a less desirable and less effective choice for serving court papers and other legal documents upon an individual. Some people work all day and get home late, so if people hire a deputy that only goes out during the day, then the person will not be served. However, if they choose instead to find a process server who can go late at night and on weekends as well, then their chances of success also increase.
One other way in which choosing a process server over a deputy is a superior choice is also because our process servers can offer immediate service. Sure, it will cost more to find the best process server than to hire a sheriff’s deputy, especially if you want the process server to start the work immediately, but if you need the job started right that instant it is the best decision. Of course, there is one other option we have not talked about yet, and it is also another way of serving someone court papers.
Sending court documents to someone via certified mailing is another option, though our social media scan private investigators note it is not a particularly good option for most defendants. While serving people via certified mailing is also legal, most people will not sign for it and thus it is also not highly effective. Thus, people mostly end up wasting their time and money and still find it necessary to hire a process server to help them in the end.
There are certain types of people who become digital private investigators and process servers. These include, but are not limited to, the following:
Some people who choose to work as process servers just want to find a fantastic way to supplement their income. They may have other jobs or receive retirement money, but they need a part time gig to supplement their income needs. Process serving is an excellent way to earn extra money for those in need!
Others seek to become process servers because they love the thrill of the hunt. Unlike killing someone though for sport or food, they still get the thrill and perform a significant public service in the process that can help people. Thrill seekers also tend to love the adrenaline rush that process serving brings with it.
People pleasers have endured trauma, and their way of dealing with it is to try to go around pleasing other people. One way they may try to accomplish this is by going around trying to please other people. Process serving can offer a quick release of serotonin and endorphins into the brain whenever they serve someone difficult for an extremely grateful client.
When they become happy when they hear their process server in Moore was successful, they relish the positive praise and the feeling of making a difference in someone else’s life. The more success they have in this profession, the more praise and thanks they receive and thus temporarily alleviate the anxiety they would otherwise from the trauma they suffered earlier in life. Since the trauma does not resolve itself without a significant amount of therapy to deal with past issues, people pleasing process servers will need to continue to successfully serve people and receive that praise to get their temporary “fix” and continue living life with traumatic pain they can temporarily alleviate.
University students are often seeking to explore their career interests, pursue internships, and begin new job opportunities. Thus, many scholars at this level become process servers and private investigators. This is especially true for people in the criminal justice field who do not want to go into law, the military, jails/prisons, and do not wish to become a probation or parole officer. These students may also work as a process server in Oklahoma City or as a private eye on a part time basis or as supplementary employment to their other job(s).
Some people just need a fresh start. They may be facing burnout in their current job, or their boss fired them, or they chose to quit. Most people work in more than one profession over the course of their lives in today’s economy. Thus, these people become process servers and social media private investigators to start new careers that many pursue on a full-time basis.
The fields of private investigations and process serving often attract people who are very independent and adventurous. They have their own ways of doing things, and this is especially true of both civil and criminal private detectives and process servers. This field is especially attractive for individuals who wish to start their own private investigation agency and hang out their shingle to solicit clients.
Many people also become process servers to help supplement their income as child custody private detectives. Indeed, many process servers work as cheating spouse private investigators and vice versa. Some of the work for both legal fields cross over into the other, and when private eye work is slow then there may be more serves to do and vice versa. Thus, this is why many people who work as PIs also serve court papers as well.
There are a few main ways in which someone can serve court papers or other legal documents upon another person. We have listed these below as follow:
We always recommend using a process server in Tulsa to help you serve your court papers or other legal documents. A process server can serve anywhere in the entire state of Oklahoma or wherever they are duly licensed. You need to find one that is not brand new and who comes with great reviews. Newbies may charge less, but they also do not know all the laws and procedures that go along with serving court documents properly.
Process servers also come with multiple advantages over the use of a sheriff’s deputy. One of the best features is that they can go at any time of the day or night, while deputies only go during workday hours, Monday through Friday. Thus, deputies have shorter windows of time in which to serve difficult and evasive defendants.
Our private investigation agency also notes that process servers can do serves on a rush or even immediate basis, whereas deputies rarely if ever can. This again gives process servers in Norman, Oklahoma huge advantages over deputies that do not offer this special service. This is yet another factor that makes our private investigation agency better than the sheriff’s office, even if the latter is cheaper than our services.
Another big downside to hiring a deputy to go serve your court papers lies in how they go out in uniform and scare many people away. This is especially true when they go to individual residences, because unlike at businesses they have an easier time keeping the door closed and choosing not to answer. If the defendants/respondents have felony warrants, are immigrants, or otherwise have reason not to trust law enforcement officers, they will simply keep their doors closed and their lights off.
Process servers do not suffer from this disadvantage. Most of us go out in plain clothing, and we do not wear uniforms or badges. Thus, our private investigation agency in El Reno, Oklahoma may even send out a young, pretty female to get an older, straight male to answer the door more easily. Indeed, we have plenty of tricks up our sleeves!
Process servers near me can also spend plenty of time waiting and watching outside of a defendant’s home for them to come or leave. We call this “siege serves,” because it is like assaulting a medieval castle and can take time to complete but can potentially have huge payouts if successful! Law enforcement deputies cannot do this, because they lack the time, resources, and human power. Thus, this serves as another definite advantage that our private investigation agency in Broken Arrow, OK enjoys that are a definite con when hiring a deputy.
Clients can always try to send court documents to defendants/respondents via a certified mailing with a return receipt. However, this method almost never works unless the plaintiff/petitioner is serving court documents upon a larger business or governmental agency. Otherwise, they will have just wasted their time and money, because almost no other defendants will sign for the documents.
What is worse, the petitioners/plaintiffs will have also tipped off the defendants that they are trying to serve them. So, when this method fails and they end up having to send out a process server or sheriff’s deputy to complete the job, it will make it all the harder for them because the failed certified mailing attempt will have already alerted them to the impending lawsuit delivery.
Service by a sheriff’s deputy is often cheaper than hiring a process server. But as you can read above, they come with many significant downsides that make them more of a liability in many cases than a benefit. However, there are a few upsides to them as well, as our infidelity private investigator notes.
One of the biggest benefits of choosing a deputy to help you serve papers is the lower price. While you certainly get what you pay for, deputies are usually cheaper than process servers and sometimes work better for people on a budget. Since some people just do not have much money to spend, this may be their best or even only option.
Deputies are also preferable and sometimes even mandatory for serving places like jails, prisons, and military facilities. Even though federal and state laws allow for the service of process to these places by process servers, deputies have a definite advantage of gaining easier access. Indeed, jails, prisons, and military posts and bases are less likely to delay the entrance for law enforcement officers, let alone to outright deny them all access like they sometimes do with even the best process servers in Oklahoma!
Another downside to hiring a sheriff’s deputy to help you deliver court documents is that many of them do not ask defendants for identification if they deny they are the defendant the law enforcement officer is seeking. We have the best licensed process servers though, so everyone on our team always asks for a state or federal photo ID if the person we see at an address a client gives us denies she/he/they is/are the individual we are looking to serve.
Some people avoid the service of process by licensed process servers in Ponca City, because they do not want to receive court papers or other legal documents. This is straightforward. Who can blame them? As much as a process server might feel frustrated by an evasive defendant, if someone were trying to serve them they might very well try to avoid, too.
As stated earlier under both the Oklahoma Rules of Civil Procedure & the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, a process server may legally serve anywhere a sheriff’s deputy may and vice versa. Well, this is a great theory, but some military posts/bases, and jail and prisons will not let a process server inside to reach the defendant. Is it fair? No, it is not fair or legal, but this is sadly how it works because some institutional officials refuse to follow the proper laws. Thus, as mentioned earlier, these are a few facilities where a sheriff’s deputy often a clear advantage over a process server when trying to serve someone.
The same thing goes for some military bases as they do for many jails and prisons. This is not to say that a military base or post or even the commandants of a jail or prison will prohibit all process servers from serving there. Indeed, some do and some do not, so before a process server tries to serve someone there it is best to check with the institution beforehand. Sometimes prisons and military installations will let process servers in right away, and some will delay or deny them entry, but deputies seldom, if ever, have this issue.
Our private investigation agency can and will sometimes serve a person who is at a mental health facility, nursing home, or hospital. Depending on their state of mind, we may need to write on the affidavit that the individual was under mental health care or was unconscious at a hospital. A judge may overlook it if the court papers are for guardianship, but if the matter is a big lawsuit, an adoption, or something serious, then the judge may delay all proceedings or even void service until the defendant/respondent is fully capable of receiving the legal documents and having an ability to respond to them.
There are several important process serving techniques and tricks that our legal team can use when trying to serve an especially difficult defendant. Our private investigation agency in Del City, Oklahoma has picked up on these tricks of the trade via years of experience and education in this field, and now we wish to share them with others who also want to know how to become better process servers.
Social media scans are perfect for process servers for many reasons. Our digital private investigators love to use digital private investigations in this legal field, because they can help process servers find out more about the people they are trying to serve. This is especially helpful for people who are dangerous or who have expunged serious criminal records but for whom news stations still have stories about the incidents on the Internet.
Social media scans can also help locate evasive respondents, which comes in super handy when our PI agency’s skip tracing fails to show a better address. They can also help locate family members and friends of the POI, and this is helpful in trying to find people who might willingly give up the POI’s location. Indeed, our social media private detectives have many uses for these great investigative tools!
Skip tracing is a great, quick, inexpensive tool for helping to find missing people quickly. Our skip tracers take bits of essential information about someone like their name, DOB, SS#, etc., and run it through a special utility search. We can often pull up the newest places they live. This comes in especially handy, when you as a process server arrive at a defendant’s home only to find it vacant or find yourself face-to-face with the brand-new homeowner. Nationwide skip tracing is a process server’s best friend.
You can also ask our private investigation agency in Midwest City to wait down the road from a home or office location. That was our process server can jump out of the car as soon as the defendant arrives and hand the individual the court papers. It takes plenty of patience and additional costs, but it sure can pay off well if er end up getting service done!
Nationwide civil and criminal background checks are also useful in helping determine what criminal and civil history the defendant has. This can come in handy during the client’s court case, especially if it is for a VPO or child custody case. It also helps process servers to know what kind of person with whom they are dealing.
Sometimes it becomes necessary to give some extra cash to the coworkers where an evasive defendant works or even to the apartment manager where the individual lives. Even family members and friends may become willing to loosen their tongues and disclose the location of an evasive defendant. You never know unless you try, and if a client is willing to cover the cost, then why not?
Asset checks can also help civil private detectives inform their clients as to what titled properties and assets a person owns and even where a person works. Thus, when a client wins a judgment and wishes to know where someone has assets to pull from and which bank or place of employment to garnish, our asset private investigations are adept at locating missing and hidden assets of many kinds.
When a nationwide skip trace service pulls up a P.O. box, it can sometimes prove to be frustrating for the client because we cannot serve someone at a post office box unless our Oklahoma process server just happens to magically be there at the same time as the defendant comes to retrieve mail. That never really happens though.
So, for a small fee our process server in Altus, OK can go to the post office and fill out a form and get the physical address that matches the post office box number. Armed with this crucial information, our process server can then travel to the new location for an additional fee and try to serve the respondent.
License plate checks are also a process server’s best friend, and this is especially true when there are vehicles parked in a driveway the client wants us to serve papers at, but no one answers the door. Alternatively, someone might answer the door, but the process server may have doubts about the person’s identity because the individual may refuse to show ID or may present a form of identification that appears false to our process server. When this happens, our social media private detective has the perfect solution.
Our digital private investigator can also fill out a form and give it to the tag agency personnel and/or can run a special license plate search via skip tracing software. Once we know who owns the vehicle and where the person lives, it can help identify whose vehicle is at the house, office, or other location. If the vehicle belongs to the defendant we are trying to serve or even to the respondent’s family member, it can help our process server successfully deliver the papers.
Mail forwarding checks are also an extremely useful investigative tool that social media scan private investigators and process servers alike sometimes use when trying to serve evasive individuals. Indeed, when a person has just moved from a residence, but no one knows where, our private detective agency can fill out a form at the post office so they can tell us where the person moved to. Of course, not everyone fills out these forms, and they do not work on UPS mailbox locations because the company has a special privacy policy that prohibits the disclosure of this personal information.
Process serving is an especially dangerous legal profession. Much like with law enforcement officers, criminal private investigators, and Oklahoma bail bondsmen, there is a definite danger element to serving someone court papers. This is especially true when serving evictions that deprive someone of a place to live, hotly contested divorces, and child custody cases where money, homes, cars, and kids/grandkids are at stake.
Most of the time, process serving goes off without a hitch and with zero serious issues. Some male defendants though are especially dangerous, as are female defendants’ husbands, brothers, uncles, adult male children, stepchildren, etc. Indeed, most violent attacks upon process servers and deputies come from men, as in the case when in 2023 a man in Oklahoma viciously murdered one Oklahoma County Sheriff’s Deputy and tried to kill the other. The man refused to go quietly when they law enforcement came to evict him from his home, and it did not go well at all. Their grisly murder/attempted murder absolutely stunned the community and sent shockwaves throughout the law enforcement and process serving legal professions.
These deaths have happened on other occasions, as in the 2017 murder of a Logan County, Oklahoma Sheriff’s Deputy David Wade while he was out serving court papers and the guy shot him. The killer was not even one of the people the deputy was bringing the court papers to. Indeed, this profession is dangerous and comes with significant risks.
During other times, a crazy Tulsa man also shot at and wounded a Tulsa, Oklahoma process server in 2018 and earned himself thirty-two years in prison for it. Likewise, in vicious dogs Texas slaughtered a female process server right before her wedding ceremony! See how perilous this legal field of process serving can be? Sometimes it feels even more dangerous than working as a rape private investigator.
Even women can begin viciously attacking process servers, as did a young black female who tried to attack and beat process server Dr. Makayla Saramosing when she came there to serve someone else living at the home. The angry black girl rushed her as she had just reentered her vehicle and repeatedly beat on Dr. Makayla’s car as she tried to leave. One can never be too careful when working as a process server, and it never hurts to become an armed private eye with a C.L.E.E.T. license and to go out carrying a firearm for protection.
The costs to hire a process server vary depending on the speed of service, number of pages to print out, and the location the defendant lives in. Also, as mentioned earlier, newbie process servers tend to be cheaper but often screw up more, fail to understand and know the proper laws, and have not yet learned the best proper techniques to serve evasive defendants/respondents. Thus, call our private detective agency in Lawton, OK to help you with the best combination of pricing and experience you need to complete your serve successfully.
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