Process server in Los Angeles County

Yes, three. The corporate office is at 2476 Overland Avenue, Third Floor, in Los Angeles; there is a second Los Angeles office at 1875 Century Park East in Century City; and a Glendale office at 201 North Brand Boulevard. All three are listed on our contact page. None of that shortens anything the court or the statutes set, and it is not a commitment to a particular day. What each assignment gets is the filing district that Local Rule 2.3 sets for the case and a signed POS-010 showing every attempt, including the ones that did not reach the person.

In the court district where the incident arose. The court’s Local Rule 2.3(a)(1)(A), as amended effective January 1, 2026, makes that mandatory for every unlimited civil tort action for bodily injury, wrongful death or damage to personal property, and points filers to the court’s filing court locator to find the right courthouse. Before that change these cases could be filed only at the Stanley Mosk Courthouse or the Michael D. Antonovich Antelope Valley Courthouse. Whether a case counts depends on how it is described on form LACIV 109. Defamation, civil rights or discrimination claims, intentional infliction of emotional distress, non-medical malpractice and injury to real property are outside the definition.

It goes to a different place from other transfer requests. Under Local Rule 2.3(b)(2), motions to move a civil action from one district to another, including motions based on a failure to file where the rules require, are made in Department 1 in the Central District, except for a Personal Injury Action. Proceedings to transfer one of those are decided in the Central District or the North District, in the departments the court designates to hear them, which the rule calls the Personal Injury Court. Filing it in the right district at the start avoids the question.

Ten days after the complaint is served, and the count leaves out Saturdays, Sundays and other judicial holidays. That is Code of Civil Procedure section 1167 as it reads now, amended by AB 2347. If service is completed by mail or in person through the Secretary of State’s address confidentiality program, the tenant gets five more court days. Section 1167 also says the unlawful detainer summons is issued, served and returned the same way as an ordinary civil summons, which is why a registered process server can serve it.

They are two different jobs. The summons and complaint in an unlawful detainer are served like any civil summons, so a registered process server can deliver them. The writ of possession that follows a judgment is different: section 715.020 gives its execution to the levying officer, which section 680.260 defines as the sheriff or marshal. That officer serves the writ on an occupant, or posts it and serves the judgment debtor, and if the property is not vacated within five days of that service the officer removes the occupants and puts the landlord in possession.

The court decides that, not the filer. The Superior Court divides the county into twelve districts under its Local Rule 2.2, and Local Rule 2.3 sets the filing location by case type. Small claims, limited collections and limited unlawful detainer are routed by venue through the appendices to that rule. Other limited civil matters are filed in the Central District, and unlimited civil in the Central District goes to the Stanley Mosk Courthouse at 111 North Hill Street. The case type and the venue facts decide the district before anything is filed.

Yes, in every civil case type. Local Rule 3.4(a) requires litigants represented by attorneys to file all documents electronically through an approved electronic filing service provider unless the court exempts them, and self-represented litigants are exempt. On timing, Local Rule 3.4(g) treats a document received electronically before midnight on a court day as filed that day if it is accepted, and one received on a non-court day as filed on the next court day.

Local Rule 3.4(b) lists the exceptions, and they are the usual cause of a rejected filing. Peremptory challenges to a judicial officer under sections 170.6 and 170.3, bonds and undertakings, trial and evidentiary hearing exhibits, documents submitted conditionally under seal, and any ex parte application filed at the same time as a new complaint, including those handled by a writs and receivers department, all go in on paper. Everything else from a represented party goes in electronically. We sort a package into the two routes before it is filed rather than after it bounces.

Section 416.10 sets the options for a corporation. The papers can go to its designated agent for service of process, or to the president, chief executive officer or other head, a vice president, a secretary or assistant secretary, a treasurer or assistant treasurer, a controller or chief financial officer, a general manager, or someone the corporation has authorized to accept service. In place of personal delivery, section 415.20(a) also allows the papers to be left during usual office hours at that person’s office with the person apparently in charge, then mailed first class; service is complete on the tenth day after mailing.

Under section 415.20 as it reads today, no number is written into the statute; courts judge the effort on the record. That changes on January 1, 2027, when an amended version enacted by AB 747 takes effect: it treats good-faith attempts at personal delivery on at least three occasions, on three different days, at three different times, as a showing of reasonable diligence, and in consumer debt cases at least one of them has to be at the home if it is known or can be found with reasonable effort. The same version also allows the follow-up copy to go by Priority Mail with tracking or Certified Mail.

It depends on the kind of box. A United States Postal Service post office box never qualifies for substituted service; section 415.20 excludes it expressly. A private mailbox rented from a commercial mail receiving agency is treated differently: under section 415.20(c), when that mailbox is the only address reasonably known for the person, service can be made on the first delivery attempt by leaving the papers with the agency in the manner set out in Business and Professions Code section 17538.5. Tell us which kind of box it is before the first attempt, because it changes the plan.

Yes, and the court’s timing is specific. Local Rule 3.4(l) requires an ex parte application and every supporting document to be electronically filed no later than 10:00 a.m. on the day before the hearing, and Local Rule 3.5 sets the hearing times, mornings for unlimited civil and writs departments in the Central District and afternoons for limited civil and limited unlawful detainer. An ex parte application filed together with a new complaint is the exception to eFiling and goes in on paper. Individual departments still vary in their practice.