What Does a Legal Service of Process Company Do?

Before you put up a company, you should assign a legal service of a process agent or company. In this article, we discuss what service of process is. We also talk about the functions of service of process agent. Read on! 

What Does Service Of Process Mean?

If someone files a lawsuit against your business, they must notify you of the lawsuit. Countries and states have different rules as to how that notice can be served. 

In some states, a copy of the lawsuit must be delivered personally by the process servers. In other states, a court clerk must mail it. 

The person delivering the lawsuit then records the date of delivery — or the “service”. This determines the deadline by which you can file a response. 

In other words, the delivery of the lawsuit is the “service of process”. This may also refer to other legal documents, such as subpoenas that require you to testify in court. 

As a business, you must have a service of process agent that provides Premium Process Legal Services to alert you promptly if any actions are taken against your company. 

What Does a Legal Service of Process Agent Do?

Your legal service of process company is responsible for receiving legal documents served on your business. They then forward the documents to the right person within your company. 

The legal service of process agent’s name and address should appear on your company’s public records. Apart from legal documents, the agent will also send notifications from taxing authorities to you. If their address changes, you must update your public record’s information right away — or you’ll incur penalties. 

In most places, it’s possible to assign an employee or the owner of the business to be the service of process agent, though this has some drawbacks that we’ll discuss below. In most cases, corporations are better off hiring a third party that specializes in the legal arena. 

Also, Check – What Are My Rights If I Need to Go on Sick Leave?

Why Hire a Legal Service of Process Agent 

Your legal service of process agent should be trustworthy and responsible. While others act as their own agent, there are downsides to that. You must also consider the following: 

• If you’re not usually in your office, you might miss notifications and deliveries — the agent must always be available during normal business hours. 
• If you serve as your own agent, it might be embarrassing to process court papers in front of your customers and staff. 
• If you have privacy concerns, remember that the agent’s name and address appear on your company’s public records. 
• If your business spans multiple states and provinces, you must have an agent in each state. It’s better to hire a registered agent company in this scenario. 

If you don’t have a registered service of process company or agent, you face penalties for non-compliance. Your authority to do business might get dissolved. 

Also, if the service of process agent fails to do their job and doesn’t notify you of legal actions against your business, your company may lose hefty amounts of money for default judgments. 

Why Are Legal Service of Process Agents Mandatory? 

For business entities like corporations, LLCs, and LLPs, you can’t just deliver legal documents to anyone working for the company. 

Papers can only be served on someone who can ensure the papers end up in the hands of the defendant — or a person or entity that can file a timely legal response.  

By requiring business entities and corporations to maintain a registered service of process agents, the government ensures that each business knows when legal actions are taken against them and that they can respond on time.