When a legal document needs to be served you can hire a process server or a sheriff. Which is the best choice for you? Here at the ASAP Serve Blog, we have addressed this question in a different context before in our post on who can be a process server. Now, we are going to look at the question from the perspective of someone considering which to hire: process server or sheriff. Consider the following points:
- Speed: A process server’s job is to serve legal documents. This is their main priority. A sheriff, on the other hand, has many other tasks. Serving your document may be a lot farther down a sheriff’s to do list.
- Knowledge: Because a process server specializes in this one area, they are more likely to know all of the laws and changes in the law regarding service of process. A sheriff has a wider range of laws that he need to be knowledgeable about. When you only need one specific task done, a wide range of knowledge is less helpful than an in-depth knowledge of the task at hand.
- Cost: Although the average fee for a process server is slightly higher than that for a sheriff, according to our friends as ServeNow.com, the difference is only about $14. Considering the amount of money that is at stake in many legal cases, 14 dollars is not a big deal if you are getting better service and a higher rate of efficiency.
If you are more of the visual learner type, we have included this handy infographic from ServeNow.com. Let us know who you think is the better choice by leaving a comment below. Be sure to learn more about what we can offer for those in the Phoenix, Arizona area who need documents served at our main site.
