Process Server in Norman, Oklahoma FAQs

He serves court documents and other legal papers in an official capacity as an officer of the court to other individuals, businesses, nonprofit organizations, and governmental agencies.

Lots of people end up needing their services. Law firms and large businesses sometimes need them on a regular basis, while most individuals do not require them very often. Many times, people only learn what she/he is, when she/he/they have some type of court action arise.

Most of the clients who end up hiring one typically fall into one of the following categories:

1. Businesses
2. Individuals
3. Non-profit Organizations
4. Governmental Agencies

Need a court document or other legal paper served in a hurry? No need to worry! Please just contact our private investigation agency today and speak with a licensed process server in Norman, OK now!

They serve many different types of legal documents. Some of these court papers include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Small Claims Affidavits and Orders
• Subpoenas Duces Tecum
• Subpoenas for Deposition
• Indirect Contempt Citations
• Petitions and Summonses
• Victim Protection Orders (VPOs)
• Temporary Restraining Orders (TROs)
• Letters to Cease and Desist
• Letters of Termination/Non-Renewal
• Petitions and Summonses for Forcible Entry and Detainer (Eviction Papers)
• Notices to Pay or Quit (Pre-Eviction Papers)
• Hearings on Assets
• Demand Letters

They can serve just about any kind of legal documents you want. If you need help with your process serving order, please contact us today for more assistance.

There are many factors which ultimately affect how much a client will pay for process serving. These pricing factors are as follow:

Number of Available Process Servers/Size of the Location:

The larger the city our process server is in is serving court documents, the cheaper it will probably be. Unless it is an expensive state/city like New York City that will obviously cost more, most larger towns and city locations have more.

Having more process servers means our agents need only to travel shorter distances. When the location to serve someone is very remote, they must travel further distances to and from the location, if our private investigation agency has no process servers in Oklahoma in that area.

Process Server in Norman, OK’s Speed of Service:

Sometimes our clients need them completed on a routine basis, with them making the first attempt within three (3) to seven (7) business days. The matter may not be urgent, and there may be weeks or even a month or more before the court date.

Other court matters have extremely short timeframes and thus require that they begin service the same day. When our clients require rush/immediate service, our professionals pushes that particular serve up in front of all the other serves that other clients have paid for on a routine basis in order to try to complete it as soon as possible.

Process Server in Norman, Oklahoma’s Stakeouts:

Some respondents/defendants take every possible measure to try to avoid having one serve her/him/them with legal documents. Thus, in these cases sometimes the only possibility is for them to sit and wait outside of her/his/their home or workplace and try to catch the respondent/defendant coming or going. For an hourly fee, our expert is more than happy to try this tactic.

Multiple Sets of Attempts by a Process Server in Norman, Oklahoma:

Most of the time, he can get an individual served within the standard number of attempts on service. Sometimes, the defendant/respondent has been avoiding service, or perhaps has moved locations or has been on vacation. Sometimes the defendant/respondent could be a truck driver and might not come home very often, thus making getting good service very difficult.

They are more than happy to make a second round of attempts beyond their standard four (4) or perhaps two (2) or three (3) in smaller towns. There is an extra fee, just as there is to try a new address. This fee covers mileage, fuel, repairs, etc., that each must incur as a business expense.

Nationwide Skip Tracing:

Sometimes our clients do not have a valid home or business address for our process servers attempt. At other times, our clients may think they have a decent address for us to try at, and when our professionals attempts it the address may be vacant, have a new tenant/resident, etc. Not to fear!

Our agency also offers nationwide skip tracing via our process servers and our private investigators. It allows our agents to gather certain information from our clients and use it to try to locate the defendant/respondent.

If you as our client need an address for us to attempt and desire nationwide skip tracing, please contact us today.

Number of Pages Our Process Server Must Print Out:

Some of our clients send thousands of pages of paper for them to print out. Others send one (1). Unless our clients send them ten (10) pages or more to print out, there is no charge for printing. If our clients send ten (10) or more pages for them to print out, there is a small fee for all the pages.

Whether You Require Domestication of Documents/Filing by Our Process Servers:

Legally speaking, clients must file out of state subpoenas issues from state courts in with the county clerk where the defendant/respondent resides. Courts seldom charge a fee to have it filed in/domesticated, and if they do it is very minimal. They are happy to assist with this filing for a small extra fee. Courts do not usually require the domestication of federal subpoenas.

Also, some clients need the entire case (i.e., summons and petition) filed in with the court clerk, or perhaps they need an additional pleading filed in before having one serve it upon a respondent/defendant. In this case, our specialist is more than happy to print out extra copies and to pay the fee to the court clerk on the client’s behalf. Our clients just add that fee back in with what they pay us as compensation.

Witness Fees Added in by them:

Subpoenas duces tecum and subpoenas for deposition are supposed to have accompanying witness fees to cover the cost of copies of documents and for witness fees/mileage for witnesses subpoenaed to testify. Our clients are free to provide their own witness fee checks with these documents, or he/she can provide it for them and then receive reimbursement from the client for the necessary fee.

Especially Dangerous Defendants/Respondents – Process Server’s Safety:

Some defendants/respondents are bad and dangerous, and our such clients have a legal responsibility to inform our company of this beforehand. If our client knows that the defendant/respondent is particularly dangerous, our private detective agency might assess an extra fee to take another armed bodyguard or private detective for added assistance and protection.

If a client fails to warn our officials that a particular defendant/respondent is particularly dangerous and the defendant/respondent attempts to harm or injures/kills them, then our company also reserves the right to assess a very high fee upon the client. They always deserve to know in advance if a known danger exists.

Governmental Agency Fees Our Process Server in Norman, OK Must Pay:

Some governmental agencies like the Oklahoma Secretary of State charge a fee for the “privilege” of having them serve the papers for our client on their behalf. This typically applies to businesses. Usually, this fee is about twenty-five dollars ($25.00) or thereabouts, and they allow a process server to bring several copies of the papers and the necessary fee with them to their location when serving businesses only with non-subpoena court papers. For obvious reasons, our clients must cover these additional fees that our official must pay.

There are several types of service of process, and the courts consider some of them to be effective one hundred percent (100%) of the time, while others are not valid at all in some circumstances. The following are its different types:

Personal Service:

The courts consider personal service as the most effective method of service. This is where a process server or a sheriff’s deputy personally places the court or other legal documents into the hands of the individual/registered agent that is the subject/defendant/respondent of the court matter. This method is best, in that it ensures that the person directly involved in the court case has the documents.

Courts also accept as personal service cases where a plaintiff/petitioner respondent sends the court documents to the defendant/respondent via certified U.S. Mail with a return receipt and the defendant/respondent personally signs for them.

Substitute Service:

Many court jurisdictions allow for substitute service, which is where an expert leaves the court documents for a defendant/respondent with someone else who also resides at the home with the residence with her/him/them who is over the age of fifteen-and-a-half (15 ½).

For businesses, governmental agencies, and nonprofit organizations, he may leave the documents with a legal secretary or managerial staff, if the registered agent for the corporation, governmental agency, or non-profit organization is unavailable. The courts also consider this as valid substitute service.

Please remember that not all states, such as Texas, accept substitute service as valid service of process. Most states, such as Oklahoma, place restrictions on what documents they may serve via substitute service.

Other states, like California, require them to make a certain number of attempts before serving documents upon a defendant/respondent at a valid address via substitute service with any California papers. They also require that the client/process server/sheriff’s deputy also mail out a copy of the documents to the defendant/respondent via regular U.S. Mail.

They should always check the laws in both their states and the states where the papers they are serving may originate, prior to serving court documents. This helps ensure that the courts will not throw out their service.

Nail and Mail/Posting:

Courts do not allow them to serve court documents via posting or “nail and mail” as some legal professionals refer to it in most cases. Considered one of the least effective methods of process serving only allow it in very limited instances.

As far as evictions go, he may post the initial notice to pay or quit on the front door of the respondent/defendant/evictee without hindering the eviction process.

However, in cases where a property owner merely wants possession of her/his/their property and does not care about a money judgment, he may only post the next set of eviction documents, the summons and petition for forcible entry and detainer, on the front door of the defendant/respondent and must also mail out a copy of the documents to the same address via certified U.S. Mail with a return receipt.

If the defendant/respondent ends up signing for the court papers and the property owner receives the green card back from the U.S. Post Service prior to the court date, then the courts do count it as personal service that makes the property owner eligible for both a money judgment and possession of the property in question. Of course, in most cases defendants are unable to sign for the legal documents prior to the eviction, hearing because they come up quickly.

In some limited circumstances where a defendant/respondent is avoiding this service via certified U.S. Mail with a return receipt, via specialists, a judge might grant a special order allowing them to serve the court documents upon a defendant/respondent by simply posting the documents to the person’s door. This does not happen very  often, but sometimes it is the only choice and the judge has likely grown frustrated by the defendant’s/respondent’s behavior.

Service Via the Opposing Party’s Legal Counsel:

They can often serve a respondent/defendant via her/his/their attorney if indeed she/he/they has/have one. Some states count this as personal service, while others consider it to be substitute service. Oftentimes attorneys will simply waive formal service and will accept it via email or via certified U.S. Mail with a return receipt back and forth.

Certified Mailing:

As mentioned above, clients may also mail out court documents to respondents/defendants via certified U.S. Mail with a return receipt. If the respondent/defendant personally signs for the court documents, the courts consider it as valid personal service. If the respondent/defendant is willing to do accept service, this method can be great.

While this method can cost less than choosing to hire one, most defendants/respondents do not sign for the documents that clients send via certified mailing unless the defendant/respondent is a large business, governmental agency, etc. Thus, the client has wasted even more time and money, because she/he/they usually end up having to hire a process server, Oklahoma from a private investigation agency in Norman, Oklahoma or a sheriff’s deputy anyway.

Service by Publication:

Courts often consider service via publication as the “service of last resort.” In some limited cases, such as in a divorce matter, a judge might allow a petitioner/plaintiff who has exhausted all other legal remedies to simply publish an official legal notice of the case in a legal journal such as The Journal Record over a series of months. This type of service assumes the most optimistic view that hopefully the defendant/respondent will see the matter against her/him/them and will answer it accordingly.

The State of Oklahoma requires personal service only for all the following types of legal documents originating from the State of Oklahoma:

• Subpoenas
• Victim Protection Orders (VPOs)
• Hearings on Assets
• Indirect Contempt Citations

The courts all consider these matters mentioned above to be especially important. Therefore, they require personal service only for the court documents above.

Also, some states like Texas require all their legal documents to be personally served, regardless of what they are. So, process servers in Norman, Oklahoma must keep in mind that they must not serve anyone with any papers from Texas in any manner other than personal service.

Additionally, some states like California permit substitute service by an expert. However, he may only make substitute service on the third attempt. Even so, the professional or the client must also send out a copy of the documents via regular U.S. Mail to that same address.

Yes, there are training classes online and in-person at schools like SOR Training Center. Sadly, the State of Oklahoma does not require them to undergo any sort of classes or training prior to licensure, even though such training could immensely help them at all private detective agencies.

No, the ones in Oklahoma City receive an Oklahoma process server license that is valid throughout the entire State. However, they may not serve in other states, and the ones from other states may not serve court documents in Oklahoma.

He/She receives a statewide process serving license for the entire State. Thus, the Oklahoma process server license allows them to serve anywhere in Oklahoma.

Brand new ones receive an initial valid license for a period of one (1) year. Thereafter, he/she/they may renew her/his/their Oklahoma process server license every three (3) years.

The National Association of Professional Process Servers, also known as NAPPS, is a professional organization for process servers throughout the United States of America. It offers networking opportunities to them in Norman and other states. They also have places for them to post jobs and perform many other functions. This is a very noteworthy professional organization for them to join.

Yes, to find evasive and otherwise hard-to-locate respondents/defendants, our officials are more than happy to conduct nationwide skip tracing for our clients. You can find out more information about this here.

When defendants/respondents move out of their homes, apartments, or office buildings to another location, many file a change of address form with their United States Post Office so they can receive their mail at the new location. Who does not want to get her/his/their mail, right?

Also, some individuals maintain post office boxes at the United States Post Office, so they can receive mail but keep their home and/or office locations more private. This is a very common tactic that defendants/respondents who are avoiding him will often use to try to fly under the radar.

In order to try to locate an evasive defendant/respondent, he might file a special address information request form with the USPS to find out where the person had her/his/their mail forwarded to or the physical/911 address to whom a P.O. Box belongs/the person’s actual place of residence.

Experts who are requesting this information using the form in the link above need to bring their licenses with them. Otherwise, the postal workers at the United States Postal Service may not assist them.

Oklahoma does not place any limit on the days or times when they can serve court documents. This helps provide them with great flexibility and freedom to serve court documents at their leisure, anytime, any day. Of course, for safety and practical reasons most of them usually perform process serving in Norman from about 6:00 am to about 10:00 pm.

Other states, such as Texas, place restrictions on the days they can serve. No one can serve any documents that originate in Texas on Sundays. Other states have other stipulations, such as no service by a process server on Election Day.

People are always welcome to try to hide from or lie to an agent at a private investigation agency. However, Dr. Makayla Saramosing and Vivien Keefe make sure that they train all their officials very well. Thus, if you try to lie to or hide from any of our specialist, they will likely know it.

To become one, an applicant must first meet several requirements set out by the State of Oklahoma. The requirements that all process servers are as follows.

1. Each must be at least eighteen (18) years old.

2. All must be legally eligible to work in the United States.

3. Every candidate must be free and clear of all felonies and violent misdemeanors.

5. All must be residents of Oklahoma.
6. They may not be registered sex offenders.

Assuming the applicant wishing to become a process server successfully meets all the requirements above, each person will need to complete the following steps:

• The first step in the application is to fill out an Oklahoma process server application. At this point in time, the court clerk will provide each applicant for license with a court date, at which the judge will review her/his/their application. The applicant need not show for this court date.

Once the applicant completes the first step above, he will then need to complete the steps below, prior to that court date:

• Every candidate will need to secure an Oklahoma process server bond from an insurance company like Sherman-Hume.

• All of them will need to obtain two (2) passport-sized photographs from a place like Walgreens, FedEx Office, or CVS.

• They must also publish an official notice of her/his/their process server license application with an official legal journal or paper like The Journal Record.

Successful, motivated individuals can make decent amounts of money. They often make money based upon the following factors:

• Whether they do the work full time or part time
• How many serves they attempt each day
• Whether they are doing “rush” serves or “routine” serves
• The number and frequency of expenses that they have (i.e., advertising, licensing, fuel, insurance, taxes, staff, office rent/mortgage, etc.)

• Whether the he/she/they owns her/his/their own company or works primarily or exclusively for other companies

• Whether they are honest, hardworking, a good communicator, skilled/trained, self-motivated, or . . . not.

Great process servers who love the work they do can make quite a bit of money. It is in their blood, and they just love doing what they do and can have long, prosperous careers.

All of them are licensed and highly trained. In addition, many of them also hold licenses as private investigators and bodyguards. Thus, they often have additional legal skills in the following areas:

• Surveillance
• Nationwide Skip Tracing
• Interviewing Techniques
• Nationwide Criminal Background Checks
• Document Filing and Retrieval
• Bodyguard/Security Services

In addition, our private detective agency also has additional supervisory and office staff that helps ensure our process servers do an excellent job and that their affidavits of service are correct and meet our clients’ standards and expectations.

They also make more attempts on service than most at other private investigation agencies. For all process serving in larger cities and their surrounding metropolitan areas, they guarantee up to four (4) attempts on service to one (1) defendant at one (1) address for a certain price.

Most make about two (2) or three (3) attempts when engaging in process serving. A sheriff’s deputies tend to only make about one (1) or two (2) attempts on service. They also go in uniform and scare a lot of people away. Thus, one can clearly see why hiring them is a much better idea than the sad alternatives.

The owners of our private investigation agency in Norman, Oklahoma, Vivien Keefe and Dr. Makayla Saramosing, are always looking for fresh and experienced ones. Our comany is one of the fastest growing and the largest women-owned, LGBTQIA+ owned, minority-owned private investigation agency. If you wish to apply for a position as a process server in Norman, Oklahoma and/or a private investigator in Norman, OK, please fill out an application.