DOJ Update (16 Sept 2025): Government provides clarity on Hague Service of process

While the Hague Service Convention is quite a bit more complicated than this post may imply, there are a few things that practitioners must understand at the outset. Under Supreme Court caselaw in the United States, if the Hague Service Convention effects relations between the U.S. and another country, and the Defendant’s address in the other country is known, a party must serve using the Hague Service Convention. Depending on the country in which the Defendant sits, that service can be accomplished through a variety of ways, potentially.

Separately, the Convention requires all Contracting States to establish a government office called a Central Authority to assist in service by transmitting an application to the appropriate authorities for the process to be served. In other words, if a U.S. Plaintiff seeks to serve a Defendant in another Hague Service Convention country, they can complete paperwork, and send that to the Central Authority in the country where the Defendant sits to request service of process in that other country.

Apparently lawyers, litigants, and Central Authorities are sometimes confused by who can actually complete and send off the paperwork. Therefore, the U.S. Central Authority - the Office of International Judicial Assistance - penned a letter on September 16, 2025 to clarify this in the United States. The letter reminds all that the law of the Requesting State is who determines “the competence of the forwarding authorities.” Therefore, if U.S. process needs to be served overseas, U.S. state law from the relevant state, as the “Requesting State” would dictate who can complete this paperwork. And, in the United States, lawyers, as judicial officers, can complete this paperwork.

Quite a few litigants retain the services of private process server companies to do this work. Clearly their lawyer can, instead, complete the paperwork. In lieu of their lawyer, there are some other lawyers who focus on this area of judicial assistance, and can be critically helpful in not only completing the paperwork, doing it properly, but also in assisting the litigant/their lawyer in understanding the law, the process, and the next steps when service is not effectuated before their summons expires or their initial status hearing must take place, or service is not effectuated at all, among other hiccups.

MKFL provides assistance to family lawyers in resolving Hague Service of process issues in their cases.