Video: Ditch the Sheriff: What Law Firms Need to Know About Cook County Process Serving in 2025 | Duration: 2808s | Summary: Ditch the Sheriff: What Law Firms Need to Know About Cook County Process Serving in 2025

Transcript for "Ditch the Sheriff: What Law Firms Need to Know About Cook County Process Serving in 2025": Okay. Hey, everybody. It is about noon central, in Chicago. So thank you for joining today's webinar called Ditch the Sheriff, what law firms need to know about Cook County Process Serving in 2025. Pretty excited to answer a lot of questions that you very likely have going into the new year with the the very big rule change with process serving in Cook County. Just to introduce myself real quick, my name is Alex Braun. I'm the product marketing manager with, InfoTrack, and, you'll be learning a little bit about us later. But before I introduce today's speakers, I'm just gonna go over little bit of our agenda. We're gonna be I'll be introducing everybody. As I as I mentioned, we're going to cover the change in the the statutes for 2025 and why it matters, what impact it's gonna have for law firms. We're gonna spend some time talking about why private process servers should be a big upgrade, being able to use those, for law firms in the Chicago area. And then we'll spend some time looking at how you can in integrate some technology steps that will really transform your process serving workflow and hopefully make things a lot more efficient than they are today. During the presentation, you can feel free to have conversations in the chat on the right side of your, your window. That chat is open to everybody. If you wanna ask questions that we circle back to later in the q and a at the end, go ahead and and use that q and a tab all the way at the right. We also have a few supplemental documents that you can access at any time in that documents tab. But with that, I will go ahead and introduce our speakers for today. First up, we're going to have, Jeff Korotkin, who's the vice president of business development at InfoTrac. But, before that, he served as president of the National Association of, process private process servers, NAPS, I believe, for several years, among other jobs in that industry. And then we also have Lydia Malone, who is a process serving specialist with InfoTrack. And, she specialized in litigation support tools and InfoTrack service, which allows you to order from private process servers online. Now, with that, I will hand things off to Jeff to talk about what's changing in 2025. Alright. Hopefully, everybody can, hear and see me. So oops. Hang on. Hit lock. Right button. Okay. Alex, I'm in speaker mode, so I think I'm good to go. Thanks for having me. Again, Jeff Korotkin here with InfoTrack. So I am going to step through a number of slides here, mostly focused on, what's changing and why it matters, talk a little bit about, the actual, statute that is changing, what changed specifically, and and pretty much what you can expect. So with that, let's jump in here. So a little bit of background. So the current rules for a process serving most of you are are probably intimate with. Essentially, the the sheriff gets first bite or first attempt at, serving process, and private process servers are not allowed that first byte unless you get a motion in order and or have a standing order to appoint a a process server. So you know that if you can use the sheriff, you've gotta now submit jobs through the portal, pay the $60 plus the payment processing fee, and submit your job, to to the system there. So what's happened, what happened basically January of last year or earlier this year, I should say, there was a house bill 4351 that was introduced to, change the way that, parties or law firms interact with process servers and the sheriff. Essentially, the the objective was to give the filers, some choice, choices that you didn't have before without going through the motion in order or getting a standing order. So this is something that, has been talked about for a very long time, but, became a reality, earlier in the year, roughly September, October time frame. The the bill passed both houses, and, and then ultimately was signed by by the governor. So, basically, that's what happened. And next slide. So, sheriff serves. So sheriff success rates. So let me qualify this by saying, we had submitted a public request for information about how effective and and how the sheriff's office worked a while back, and what we got was some data around the sheriff success rates. So this slide here covers that. Between 2019 and 21, Cook Sheriff handled many hundreds of thousands of jobs, and their data that they sent back to us says that they were successful in 38% of of the transactions that they handled. So, oh, look at that. There is a misspell on my second bullet. So sorry about that. So what that meant to you is, you know, potentially, you might have seen delays, added costs, missed deadlines, and and other experiences, you know, because they're not getting over 60% of those jobs served or served timely. So part of that request for public information included these four points here. We wanted to know, well, you know, how long does it take for the sheriff to accept a job, process the payment, and and make that job be live? Their data told us 2 to 5 days. That first attempt was going to happen anywhere between 1 3 weeks after payment was processed. And then once they've made an attempt or or multiple attempts, you can sort of expect for their website to be updated within a couple of days with that service attempt. Of course, you need to be proactive and go look. And then assuming they did go get get the job served, and it's a couple you know, 2 to 5 days before, they would notify the clerk's office, and and you would know really what's going on with that job. So what's changing? Well, what is changing or or effective January 1st is, the statute 735 I l c s, etcetera has been amended. And now private process servers can get first bite at serving a summons or alias summons without a motion in order or special appointment, and or standing orders. And one note, we did hear from chief judge in Cook County that a general order, was issued that rescinded all standing orders or special appointments effective January 1. So if you have one now or you have special appointment or standing order after the 1st of the year, they'll those will be rescinded and, obviously, are no longer needed, as you have the option to either go to the sheriff or your favorite private process server. So we know anybody that's, you know, properly licensed as a detective or registered employee of a private or certified detective agency, can go serve process for you. What this really means is you have choice how you wanna get your jobs service to process jobs handled, you know, when you're filing a case in Cook County. So I will jump to the next slide here. This new amendment to the statute, where does it apply to? Well, it was that statute always applied to Cook because it said that, in the county with originally, it said 2,000,000, but now it's 3. You know, the the rules, you had to go to the sheriff first, apply. Now that the statute has been amended, you can send your process to any process server, including Cook, just like you did in all the other counties. So you can ideally experience a a lot of choice and, you know, a faster, smarter process serving experience. So how did this come to happen? Well, for decades, lawyers and process servers had pushed for reform for what they saw as sort of outdated rules. Cook County sheriff, as you might imagine, had some political power and was resistant to some change. Perhaps having a monopoly was something they liked. But as I said earlier, breakthrough happened in a compromise, and the law has now changed. The result is, you have choice. But for choice, there is a $5 fee arrangement. So what literally happens, come the first is when you're filing your new case and having summons issued for the parties that you want served, regardless of where they're going to be served, which is kind of an odd quirk to this law, The clerk's office will impose a $5 fee per summons. If you need to get an alias summons issued, an additional $5 fee will apply for those as well. So what happens is you submit your filing, you you'll pay your fees, and, essentially, what will happen is the clerk will collect those fees and remit those fees to the sheriff's office. So I just covered a little bit of this. Who pays? Filer pays for summons or alias summons. Clerk collects the fee at the time of filing, and, this is an important point here. What happens after that is private process servers, the statute says, shall deduct $5 from their invoice for that service fee. And if you choose to use the sheriff's office, you'll you can expect them to deduct $5 from the total service costs. So what we think is going to happen, we haven't seen it yet, is if you were to log on to the sheriff portal and submit a job, instead of it being $60, it'd be 55 because you've already paid, your fee at the time that you issued your summons. So and then, of course, there's a the sheriff charges a payment processing fee right now. I think it's a dollar 26. So it might change a little bit, but we haven't seen that part yet. So where does the fee go? I think I covered some of this already. Court gets it, collects it at the time of filing, and then not it goes to the sheriff's office. So literally, that means if you use a private process server, sheriff still gets paid. They're $5 and, the they'll deduct 5 if you use them. And then if you use a private process server, they'll deduct $5 from their invoice to you. So, the the intent there is everybody treats the law firms equally. So with that, I think I'm gonna hand this part off to Lydia. Lydia, all yours. Thanks, Jeff. Hopefully, everybody can hear me okay. I was having some speaker issues or mic issues earlier. So, this next part is still a little bit under speculation. We haven't actually had confirmation as to, where this additional $5 cost is going to be added. There's a variety of places that they could choose to implement this. So we are planning on revisiting this and sending everyone an update, once we have a little bit more confirmation as to, as to where this is going to go. Our assumption is going to be that they will add it under the additional services and fees section, But, whether or not they choose to add it to a case fee or, some other filing code, it it's still to be determined. So, that's primarily, what we know so far about, where the $5 is going to actually be added into the ordering form. Next slide if you don't mind. Likewise, InfoTrac is actually going to be let me move this here. InfoTrac is going to copy whatever the court does. So, if you are utilizing Efile Illinois and you are, if you've utilized that or if you're utilizing InfoTrack as an e filing service provider, we're going to mirror exactly what they're doing as well. So just keeping that in mind. Anything to add to that, Jeff? I know you just went offline, but, figured maybe I throw that back at you if you have anything different to add. No. If you can hear me fine. Yeah. I think that's that you covered it well. Perfect. Thank you. Alright. So let's talk about, steps to prepare your firm for 2025. You know, what's next? Are you prepared for this change? And, you know, what can we do to maybe help you prepare for that a little bit better? So defining your priorities for service. What's the most important, option here for your specific case needs? Is the sheriff or a private server the better option for the particular service that you're sending out? Things to consider would be speed, cost, reliability, and or communication. Is this a standard or a rush service? Does your client have price sensitivities? Do you need transparency or live communication with the server? Do you have special requests that you would normally not have access to via the sheriff like stakeouts, even a change of address mid job? Those are all things to consider here when you're evaluating whether or not the sheriff will continue to meet your needs or if you would prefer to move forward with a private server. Another thing is just to review and update your processes. Oh, quick question. Or I'm sorry. Not a question. But, before we move further, just wanted to open up a quick poll to the audience. If you go into the polls tab, we're just asking whether you are planning to you start using a private process server for a service of case initiating documents after January 1st. Later in the presentation, we'll share those results. But, if you have a moment, just go ahead to the poll tab and vote on that. 51 votes in the first, like, 5 seconds say 95% yes. Alright. We'll go back to the slides and I think that's where is that where we were? Yeah. We're a little bit. We're great. Thanks, Alex. Okay. So, let me jump forward just a little bit here. So reviewing and updating your current processes, reevaluating your client expenses and workflows. So, what what I think about that is just ensure that your billing processes are efficiently tracking service costs and that you're invoicing your clients accurately. Do you have the right people? Do you have a private server? I'm assuming most people do considering, you know, if you're not getting a service effectuated through the sheriff, then you're moving on to a private server. But making sure you have those relationships ready to go so that you can just immediately utilize them come, come next year. And then also leveraging tools. So, updating internal documentation and procedures to align with those new rules. So these are all just things we're a couple weeks away from the beginning of the year. These are all things just to consider in preparation so that you can, jump forward pretty seamlessly here. Exploring some server options as well. Let me jump down to my other slides here. Bear with me here. So researching servers with the right availability, reliability, and tech capabilities for your firm, considering tools like Servant that integrate seamlessly with your practice management system and other tools as well. So if you're utilizing a case management system, a document management system, there are ways for you to, order seamlessly to private servers right out the gate so that there's no delay here. And do you have those systems in place? Do you have a process that's clean that's going to be really easy for attorneys, paralegals, legal assistants to utilize moving forward. So all things to consider. Okay. And I kind of skipped ahead a little bit on this one, but reevaluating your client expenses and workflows. When you're getting the cost back, you know, generally from the sheriff, you know what the cost is gonna be upfront, so you're adding that initially. But are you recording the expenses at the appropriate time when utilizing your private server? Are those going back into your case management system efficiently, accurately? And are you leveraging tools that can help you with that? Okay. Kinda wanna shift gears slightly on this to do a brief showcase on some technology that would support this rule change. So we're gonna jump into a little bit, talking about what InfoTrack is. We are the host for this, webinar today. So what is InfoTrac? We plug directly into your legal software, cutting out some of the busy work and chaos. So we sync your client data, your case files, and billing automatically for any of your orders. So that includes e filing, serve it, which is our process serving feature that we have through InfoTrack, sign it, which is esignatures, and then we also utilize docket sync as well. So, some of these are available in different states, but, all of these are accessible to you where you are currently are now. Focusing primarily on Servit since that is our, process serving solution. This was built for firms and and we care about the results that you are are getting from this. So first of all, we value quality over cost cutting. It's built for results, not the lowest price. We trust we, utilize trusted local agencies every single time. Repeatable consistent results. We are all about building partnerships with local agencies that you can rely on and communicate with during the progression of the service. We are integrated and automated. So, we will sync expenses and documents, and updates back to you. Now we do work with specific integrated partners, which we'll showcase a little bit later on here. But, Servant is available to everyone whether or not you utilize a case management or document management system, you can still order process serving through us. You do just get a few more enhanced benefits if you are integrated with one of our integration partners. And then also transparency built in. Our process servers generally utilize a, a a job management tool, similar to a case management tool wherein when they are uploading service attempts and information that's all visible to you so that you can see what's going on with the server at any given time. You'll not only see where it was but where it currently is and where it's projected to go moving forward. Alright. Moving on to my next slide here. I did wanna take this, this moment to kinda showcase some of our, process serving agencies that InfoTrac works with through Serva. These are local agencies. So first off, we have Bob Brush with Windy City Process Serving. Bob has spent about 19 years perfecting how to get papers served quickly and reliably, in Chicago. He's also a board member of ADS AI where he shares his expertise to help others in the industry. We also have Steven Glaser here with ASAP Processors and Investigations with over 30 years of combined experience. Steven's team has supported Chicago law firm since 2001. They bring a deep understanding of the court system to process serving skip tracing and investigations. And then also Kyle Kyle Klutter with Nationwide Investigations. He's located in the heart of Chicago. Kyle's team has served, over 890,000 documents for over 24 100 clients since 2014. With process servers across Illinois and nationwide. They ensure effective delivery everywhere. So these are just a sample of, some of the many process serving agencies that are local to you that we work with through InfoTrac. You can work with these as well as other local agencies via Servit. And it's also a prerogative of ours to support connections with your preferred private servers if possible. So if you're interested in that, please reach out to us. We're happy to let you know if your preferred agency is in our network and if not, what we can do to try to get them there. Alright moving on to the next portion here and then Alex if you'll give me a second I just want to make sure I can share my screen effectively. Did want to just briefly go over our order form so that we can show that here. Let me stop sharing here. Okay. Thumbs up, Alex, if you can see my screen. Perfect. Thank you. Alright. So I just wanted to show quick, showcase really quickly how easy it is to submit an order, via Servant through InfoTrac. This is done as if I was connected as a smoke ball user, which we know there are a lot of smoke ball users out in Illinois, but there are many other case management systems that may be utilized. I do wanna take a moment to explain if you're not integrated with a specific case management system, you can still utilize this. I'm just showing you from a perspective of a Snowball user. So initially, you can grab your documents directly from your matter. If not though and you're not integrated, you can still grab them from your computer. So if they're, on a network drive, you can simply grab them from there as well. So I'm just gonna grab a couple documents of summons and complaint from here and then I'm gonna move forward with my order form and, we are gonna show you the documents off to the left hand side here so that you can reference them if needed as you progress to filling out your order form. From there, we do have the, the option here if it is an integrated workflow, you should be able to access your matter contacts directly from there and map that information over. But if not, of course, you can always copy paste toggle back and forth, add that information in there. Once you provide an address, InfoTrack is gonna show you agencies that are local to that location that are the closest in proximity that you can choose from, or, you know, if you are working with a preferred agency and you wanna utilize them every single time you order with us, we can also lock that connection so that you're not having to choose, you know, who you're working with. There are a couple of extra things in here I won't dive into really, but you can add physical details or even a photo of the recipient. You can add supporting documents maybe, photos or anything else you find might be helpful to pass along to the server. If you are still continuing to order through the sheriff, you can still select them. If it is Cook County that's being recognized as the address, we're gonna give you the option here to select Cook County Sheriff and you can order integrated, to Cook County Sheriff as well. And then as you move down here to select an agency, like I said, you can pick from a local agency. We can set up a connection to, so it goes to that specific agency every time. We do make this as customizable as possible so that your office has a similar experience every time. And this is all within the mindset of let's build relationships with these local guys. Let's get these jobs out to local guys that run these businesses in, in the best way possible. They know that area well. You know we don't need to reinvent the wheel here. So we want you to select and find an agency that you can communicate with efficiently but that we have simplified the ordering and follow-up process for. So once you've selected your agency Real quick before we continue, we we had a comment or two that the, it's a little bit hard to read the text. Is there any way they could magnify? Yeah. Is that better? Okay. Sorry about that, guys. Yeah. So we've, not anything too critical here that we've missed, but just, you know, filling out some data, which is all pretty self explanatory. But this section may be the most important is just, you know, selecting an agency and then also selecting a date for service. So, this kinda goes back to our statement as to you don't really have the capabilities with the sheriff of picking whether or not you want a rush or a standard service. You do have those capabilities within service. So if I don't need, anything same day or rush, I can order maybe a week in advance. Let's not serve anyone on Christmas Eve though. Let's just let's be nice and serve on the 30th. So I can also add special instructions which again you don't really have that option with the sheriff. You can add special instructions here. Lastly, your contact information can be shared with the with the server so that they know who to communicate with directly. If they have any urgent issues you can add a phone number there as well. Kind of going back to the integrated workflow we talked about we can push the PDF summary, the PDF fee summary back to you. We would do that anyway. But, keep in mind if you're utilizing one of our integration partners, we're not only going to push the affidavit and fee summary back to your matter, that you ordered from, but we'll also create an expense entry for you automatically. Just lastly here on this order form, this is an example of a, order summary page. So if I ever at any point needed to let my client know what's going on with the service, I can refer to this page and see a full summary of everything that's happened both from all activities, you know, down to when I submitted it, when the attempts took place, correspondence back and forth with the agency, all the way down to, reviewing the affidavit of service and approving that so that I can go ahead and get that order completed. I can also let the client know at any given time where it's been, what's expected to happen next, you know if it's awaiting a new attempt, if it's awaiting a proof of service, if it's now in review or if it's completed. You can reference any of the documents that you had submitted, returned, supporting documents as well and then we also will provide your agency's contact information. Should you work with a variety of agencies or even just one we wanna make it accessible to you to reach out to them and communicate. As we know service process has a lot of gray area and, it really is helpful to be able to communicate 1 on 1 with that agency. So this is just an example. We're happy to host additional meetings, individually with anyone that's interested just to kind of discern what would be best for your office and firm if anyone is interested in that. So I'll go ahead and stop sharing that particular screen and we'll just kind of jump back in here to our integrated partners. So as I mentioned before there are additional benefits if you utilize a case management or document management system. Some of those extra benefits are available to you. So we've listed them here. Please don't look at these and think, oh, they can't do anything for me. If you don't utilize one of these one of these softwares we can still absolutely allow you to order service process. These, these, softwares just provide a little bit of extra time saving benefits that may be helpful if you have an embedded expense entry system or document storage tool. Okay. So I'm gonna invite Jeff back on here so we can do some q and a. And, Alex as well, if you notice anything in the chat that maybe would, need to be addressed here. I was gonna say, before we jump into q and a, and we do have a lot of, questions, just wanted to share the results of that poll. So, we just closed it down and, looks pretty unanimous to me, or about as close to it as you can get. A 128 votes. We're using private process servers to 8 for for, for not. But you do have both options. I believe, Lydia covered that earlier that it's still possible to serve through the sheriff, but, do you think this the ability to use private process servers will be much more efficient. Okay. And I will start opening up the q and a here. Where do we start? We got a lot. Let's see. Some of these are technical questions. I'm just trying to get through those first. I did get a question about whether slides are available to download, addressed in the chat, but we did just make those slides available in the documents tab. If you wanna go ahead and download the slides for today's presentation. So next question from oh, sorry. Wrong button. Question from Jerry Davis. So this new law only includes Cook County cases. You want me to jump in there? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So so yes. The new law applies to any county that's over 3,000,000. In Illinois, there's only 1. It's Cook. So yes. The the amended statute only applies to Cook County, which means you are free to choose a private process server or anybody who's authorized to serve, in any county now, where you didn't have that option in Cook before. Okay. Great. Thank you. Next question comes from Josette. Previously, private process servers did not need to be licensed private detectives. Are we still able to use a non detective private process server? Yes, nothing changes there. So the statute was specific as to anybody that was defined everybody, including detectives that were authorized to serve process, Nothing changed in the statute. So, you can use anybody that you had been using who was duly authorized by statute. Okay. Cool. And then I think John Nolan adds some color to that. Looks like he's trying to answer, some what happened with the old law. Next question from Misty. Aside from Cook County, what other counties will allow us to skip service by sheriff? All of that. Yeah. You can skip service by sheriff, come January 1st in any county. Yep. And we may have some more details about some of these questions too in our follow-up session on January 14th. We'll be having a private process server on with us in that session. So we'll maybe able to get into some more details on a few of these. But, kind of Fishman asked, is there a copy of the order eliminating the need to point process server? Do we need to get an do we still need to get an order every time that we need an alias summons? Yeah. So that's a 2 part order. So we the judge I believe it was chief judge Wright issued the order eliminating the necessity to appoint or essentially resending any standing order or or appointment order that might already exist. That was sent out in an email to a colleague of ours. We can get our hands on it and make it available to you. And the second part of that question, yeah, nothing changes. You still need to handle alias summons as the way you always did, as far as getting an order. Okay. Great. Thomas Kurbitsewski. I'm I'm using my best Chicago knowledge to try to pronounce that right. Will the special process servers know to deduct $5 from their fee? What if they don't? Won't they just raise their fee $5? Yeah. So, there is 2 associations, detective association and the process server association in Illinois who have been actively communicating with the membership of their groups to let them know what they shall do. It says they shall deduct. Will I can't answer the second part. What will they actually do? Because we're not them. They they may or may not show that on their invoice, but, you know, if I were them, I would. And I can't answer what do you do if they don't. I I I would imagine maybe you go, know, talk to the sheriff's office or something. I don't know. That's that it doesn't say anything in the new statute that says what happens if you don't. K. Thanks. Next question from Kenneth. Will process servers be able to file the proof of service or proof of non service? Yes. Nothing changes there. They can file their proof for non non service declaration. Awesome. Next question is from Mike. What guardrails, if any, have been put into place to prevent the recurrence of the problems, known as sewer service? I'm guessing bad service here with, with private servers, which led to the enactment of the law requiring the sheriff that gets the 1st crack at service, not that lot being repealed. So the amended statute doesn't speak to that issue at all. So any guardrails that exist now for private process servers, I would imagine, would continue to exist. If for whatever reason, you know, there was a server who who, was committing acts like that, I would imagine there's criminal or civil remedies just like there might be now. K. And, John just added some I believe you just echoed your statement that, that we are able to file the proof of service or proof of nonservice. John also asked, is it called an alias summons costing $6, but a regular summons was free here? I can jump in real quick here and just say that the example we use there was of the area where we expect the fee is going to to be. But, the and the in the example, I think there was an alias summons line item filled in. It will be called something different if it appears there. But, Jeff, I don't know if you wanna add any color to that. Yeah. I mean, ideally, we would have had communication from Odysee, that is the host of the e filing portal, or the clerk on this prior to this session. We expected to, but we didn't get it. You know, we expect that there will be a new line item that and that says just summons when you're filing your case, and you indicate how many you are uploading that you need issued, and then that will drive the fee. The fee for the existing alias summons, we expect to stay the same. So in theory, what we think is going to happen, if you're filing an alias summons, there's a $6 fee for that already, plus a $5 fee for the that goes to the sheriff. That's what we expect to see, until they tell us otherwise. Yes. And, just to add another note to that, we we were originally scheduled to hear from them last week. That meeting has been pushed to tomorrow. So we do expect to have some new information coming into, before the holidays that we hope to share in our follow-up webinar on January 14th. I did just post a link to that in the chat, pinned at the top. If you want to register for that, you can go ahead and click on that link, and we'll be providing an update on what is actually happening, when this goes into practice at that second session. Looking for the next question here. Will there be a recording of this presentation available? Yes. This presentation is recorded, and we'll be sending out an email, within the next 24 hours with the, with the recording. Next question from Jackline. If a private person over 18 is serving, do we have to go through private detective first? The answer is no. Anybody that's authorized under the statute you now you can use to serve process, which would include, detectives, process servers with what's called a perk card, that type of thing. So as long as they're working with or for an agency or they're otherwise authorized on the existing statute, you can keep using them. Okay. Great. Maria's asking for a little clarification on one point. She said, first, it was said added to the statute applied to Cook County, and then it was said that we could skip share of service in any county. Which one is, yeah. So the statute prior to it being changed only applied to Cook anyway because it was the only county that exceeded the exceeded the population limit. Originally, it was 2,000,000 if I recall correctly. Now it's 3. Cook's the only one that has over 3. I think they're, like, 5.22 or or whatever the number is. None of the other caller counters have gotten to that threshold yet, so, therefore, that statute didn't apply to them in the 1st place. Great. Kyle asks if there's any word regarding waiver of summons and whether the $5 fee can be waived or returned. Good question. I don't know. We can ask for you. Yeah. I think any questions that we, don't have a full answer on now, we'll be jotting those down and, addressing them in the 2nd session in in January. So, again, if you, if you'd like to to hear back on any of those, go ahead and and register for that second session. Next question from Kenneth, about InfoTrac Servit. As a matter of course, will it always file a copy of the proof of service or non service with the clerk? I can take that one, Alex. So that is an optional button when you're ordering service of process through InfoTrac. You can choose to have us file the proof of service. Generally, we don't file proof of non services. So if we wanna explore that more with you, we can. I would say the majority of our clients don't want us to file a, a proof of non service due to just the cost of the the filing fee, associated with that through Infotrap. So generally speaking, we only file the affidavits or or, of of actual service, not non service. So that is an optional button that you can choose to to order with us. Awesome. Yeah. I just wanted to take a moment to thank our our listeners. We these are some great questions. Probably the liveliest discussion we've had in the webinar in in a while. So, you do have a question for us, please be sure you're also posting it in the q and a and not just the chat because I we're we're gonna be reading mostly from the q and a here. Next question is from Kelly Brummett. If your first attempted service fails, do you need to file a motion for leave to file an alias summons and appoint a special process server, or are you able to skip that with the new statute? Yeah. Great question. So me say, if your first summons has run out of time, yes, you still need an order for nailing a summon. So nothing changes there. But you do not need a motion in order or to get a standing order to appoint a private process server. So you still do what you'd always do regarding the timeliness of summonses and getting alias summonses when needed. We don't need a motion in order and or to get a standing order. Yep. And I think most of the next couple of questions were were kind of about that too. So, yeah, whether they still need to file a motion. But sounds like we we answered that one. K. And, John was asking for the exact statute number for believe we have it. Yeah. It's listed on on one of the slides there. If if you just Google that section, you'll find it, and then I believe I believe. Yep. Slide 8. If you go into the docs tab and download the slides, it you should be able to to find the statute number there. Let's see. We've got a couple new coming in, so I'm trying to make sure I didn't lose my place here. Okay. And the question whether a survey or info track integrates with Filevine. Not at this time, unfortunately. K. Next question from Michael Poulos. I would think there should always be a return of service filed even if service not found is important. I guess it's more of a more of an answer. Yeah. I mean, I think that's a great it's a great question. I mean, it's a great thing to point out. Not that the not that we couldn't have that filed. Generally speaking, just universally InfoTrac doesn't file it automatically. You could still file it. But I think, some of the feedback we've gotten is that generally an additional document would need to be filed along with it. So our customers prefer to utilize that filing fee to get a little bit, more, additional documents filed along with it. So they prefer to do that manually, but that's definitely something that could be revisited in additional discussions. Great. Thank you, Caitlin and Laura, for both for posting the, the statute number here. I'm just gonna put that on screen. They just looked that up from the from the document. That is the, the statute that was just asked about couple questions back. Leave that on screen for a second if everybody wants to copy that down. And believe this question David may might have been addressed, but I'm not sure. Does one need still need to have a private the process of repaying who is not a licensed investigator? Yeah. So refer to the statute. We we we don't want to, you know, be used to practicing law here. So look at the statute. What the statute says is there's a number of entities who are duly authorized to serve process now. None of that changed. Okay. Well, that brings us, I believe, to the end of our questions in the questions area. If we wanna thank everybody for attending today, this is a really great session in large part due to the questions asked. I know there is all probably a lot of confusion about what is actually happening on the first, but, again, hopefully, we've presented enough here to give you an idea of of what might change going into January 1st, going into the holidays. And, again, just wanted to remind you, we are having a second session on January 14th, which I believe is a Tuesday. We are going to be, have on as a special guest, Bob Rush, from when you see process serving. He should be able to dive into some of those really, granular questions about service in this area. And, again, we'll be looping back to any that we weren't able to fully answer in today's session in that session, so make sure you don't miss that. I think that's about it. Also, I just wanna thank Jeff and and Lydia for great presentation today, and, hopefully, we'll see you guys soon. Thank you. Thank you. Bye.