Staying Ahead of the Law: 5 Ways to Track Service of Process Legislative Changes

• February 18, 2010
• by ServeNow.com Staff
• Legislation
• Business Tips

Changes in legislation can have consequences for process servers that range from altering the way they do their jobs to bringing about lawsuits that can put a process server out of business. Should one of the more critical legislative developments go unnoticed or unchallenged, members of the process service industry could quickly find themselves on the wrong end of the law. Luckily, numerous resources exist for process servers to remain updated and compliant with their industry’s laws.

We’ve put together a list of five ways for you to increase your awareness about laws affecting your process service business.

1. Associations: Your dedicated news network

Perhaps the best way to stay ahead of changes in process server legislation is to join your state or national process servers association. With associations, your peers have already established an effective network that catches new legislation while there is still time to discuss it and raise objections. Kelly Riddle, President-Elect of the Texas Association of Licensed Investigators, an association that also offers process server certification classes, explained how his organization keeps a close eye on important legislation.

“We have a legislative committee that reviews any legislation that appears to have a potential impact on our industry. We also correspond with other trade associations in other regions and post alerts to our members should their attention be warranted,” Riddle said. Riddle said his association keeps members abreast of new developments by sending timely information to them, as well as printing legislative news in the association’s magazine.

To take advantage of this valuable source of national or local legislation news, visit your state association’s Web site, or go to the National Association of Professional Process Servers site at www.napps.org.

2. Putting search engines to work for you

Google, Yahoo! and Bing all allow you to set news alerts, which scour the Web 24/7 for the breaking news you are looking for in thousands of publications, blogs, and other electronic media. These news alerts often turn up not only coverage of industry legislation but interesting news stories involving process servers where a law has stirred controversy. News alerts are free and easy to set up; you just need to enter keywords that you’re interested in such as “process server” or “process server law.”

3. Joining the discussion via social networking

If you have a question regarding laws for process servers, chances are that someone has the same question or can provide an answer. The Internet has scores of specialized forums and groups waiting for you to join and contribute your questions, opinions, and advice. ServeNow.com, for example, has a group of process servers in Yahoo! Groups where more than 3,000 process servers gather online to discuss issues relevant to their industry.

Other sites that encourage industry-specific networking are LinkedIn, Google, Facebook, and Twitter. An added benefit to joining online groups for the industry news aspect is that you can make professional connections across the country that can prove extremely useful when you least expect it.

4. Conducting your own research online

For those do-it-yourselfers out there, you can jump on the information superhighway and quickly locate national or local legislation. The government makes a strong effort to make legislative documents available to the public. Useful sites for tracking legislation include:

http://thomas.loc.gov – This site, called THOMAS, is an online repository of information maintained by the Library of Congress. You can search for legislation by word/phrase or bill number and discover a bill’s intent, status, and sponsors.

GovTrack.us – is a research tool where you can track legislation, set alerts for specific topics, have questions about bills answered by other site visitors and more.

For information closer to home, you can visit the Web sites of your state’s judicial branch, the House of Representatives or Supreme Court. In Texas, for example, Kelly Riddle recommends that people go to the Texas House of Representatives site and click on “Bills” to locate specific legislation.

Another easily accessed source of legislative information is ServeNow.com’s database of process service laws on a state-by-state basis. If you have a question about rules of civil procedure or process server laws in your state, you’ll likely find an answer at ServeNow.com.

5. Getting to know your elected officials

Knowing who represents your interests and how to contact them is important to stay informed about local issues regarding process service. In the event that a bill comes up that might negatively impact your business, the decision-makers are just a phone call, e-mail or letter away (although it might take time to actually receive a response due to busy schedules). Names and contact information are available on GovTrack.us, where you can locate the names of your district’s representatives and senators by typing in your ZIP code.