The Constitution of the United States requires that if an individual is summoned to appear in court, they must be notified of this summons before any court proceedings can take place. While this seems like a common sense idea now, at the time it was revolutionary to the legal process. In the past, it was common for courts to rule on a case without a defendant ever knowing he had a trial! Luckily, the Founding Fathers knew there had to be a better way to handle court cases, and the role of serving papers was started.
In the beginning, serving papers from the court was a job performed by sheriffs within each specific jurisdiction. As cities grew, it quickly became apparent that sheriffs were unable to dedicate the time and resources necessary to disperse court papers and also carry out their day-to-day job functions. Thus, the modern process server was born.
The main role of a process server is to inform individuals that they are being summoned to court for a variety of reasons. They are, in the truest sense of the word, messengers of the courts. Process servers play an important role in the legal process by not only informing individuals that they are summoned to appear in court, but also by relieving the workload of local sheriffs and other law enforcement personal, allowing them to focus on other legal matters.
Today, process servers deliver thousands of papers from the court every day, helping to keep individuals informed of the cases they are involved in and making sure that the legal system can work smoothly and efficiently. Without these dedicated servants of the court, even the most basic legal proceedings could take months to complete, simply because the individuals involved would never know they were needed in court.
