Subpoena Service in San Francisco, CA

Standard and rush service are available across the City and County of San Francisco. Timing depends on where the witness or custodian is and how hard they are to reach, and a records subpoena still has to respect the statutory notice period before production can be compelled, so send it as early as you can.

Yes. When a records subpoena seeks a consumer’s personal records, Code of Civil Procedure section 1985.3 requires the consumer to be served with notice, a copy of the subpoena, and a proof of service before the custodian is served. Employment records carry the parallel notice under section 1985.6. We prepare and serve those notices in the right order and keep the proof of service.

On a records subpoena the target is the custodian of records or another person qualified to certify the records, and when personal records are involved the consumer notice has to go out first. Give us the subpoena, the business, or the witness, and we confirm the right person and address before the server goes out.

When a witness is hard to reach, we contact you with what the server found, a bad address, a gatekeeper, or a pattern of evasion, and we run more attempts at different times. Where the facts support it, we document the evasion for a motion or an alternative method of service. Because we start early rather than at the cutoff, there is usually time to complete service.

Yes. A witness is entitled to a fee for attendance and mileage under Government Code section 68093, thirty-five dollars a day and twenty cents a mile each way. When a subpoena requires the fee to be tendered at service, our server advances it on the spot and itemizes it on your invoice, so the tender is documented and the service holds.

You get a proof of service signed by a registered process server, dated and detailed enough to document who was served, where, and when. On a records subpoena, the custodian’s affidavit under Evidence Code sections 1560 and 1561 comes back with the copies, which lets the records stand in for the custodian’s live testimony.

A deposition subpoena for business records cannot command production sooner than the statute allows, and when the records are a consumer’s personal records, the consumer notice under Code of Civil Procedure section 1985.3 has to be served first. Tell us your discovery cutoff and we work the service dates backward from it, then flag any window that looks too tight before the server goes out.

Yes. When the case is pending in another state, we domesticate the foreign subpoena under the Interstate and International Depositions and Discovery Act, Code of Civil Procedure section 2029.100 and following: the foreign subpoena goes to the superior court in the county where discovery is sought, the clerk issues a California subpoena, and we serve it on the witness or custodian here.

In the law and motion and discovery departments at the Civic Center Courthouse: Department 301 for odd case numbers and Department 302 for even ones. The moving party selects and notices the hearing date without a reservation number, as the court’s Law & Motion and Discovery page explains, and counsel can appear by videoconference.

No. The court no longer provides a court reporter in the Law & Motion Department. Parties who want a record may retain their own certified reporter, who can appear in the courtroom or remotely.

The foreign subpoena is submitted to the clerk of the San Francisco Superior Court, who issues a California subpoena under Code of Civil Procedure section 2029.300. Civil filings go to the Civil Division in Room 103 of the Civic Center Courthouse, 400 McAllister Street. We then serve the issued subpoena on the witness or custodian in San Francisco.