Step by Step Guide for using the Hague Service Convention

Today's guest author is Pamela Brown, a legal services lawyer in Texas. Many lawyers are asking recently about how to serve process on someone who resides outside of the United States. Ms. Brown has some practical and valuable advice. She says:

Last year, I prepared and disseminated an elaborate step by step guide as to how to properly and practically serve a defendant/respondent residing in Mexico via the Hague Service Convention ("HSC"). I noted then that while the Convention itself provided a rather streamlined process for accomplishing service in its signatory countries, some countries, including Mexico, had essentially disregarded parts of the treaty and required attorneys requesting service of process within their borders to jump through several hoops not contemplated by the Convention as drafted.

Well, I am happy to report that the Permanent Bureau of the Hague Conference on Private International Law was also keen to the problems associated with some its signatory countries' implementation of the treaty and has been taking some steps to remedy the situation. Fortunately, Mexico is among the countries embracing the Permanent Bureau's recommendations.

So based on the above, I've updated the step by step guide on how to serve a defendant/respondent in Mexico under the Hague Service Convention.  You may access that guide here. A workshop on the HSC was held in Mexico last November. You may access the Permanent Bureau's Conclusions and Recommendations regarding the HSC.

Please feel free to contact me should you have any questions.

Pamela M. Brown
Attorney at Law
Bi-National Project on Family Violence
Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, Inc.
300 S. Texas Blvd.
Weslaco, TX  78596
(956) 447-4809
(956) 968-8823 (fax)
pbrown@trla.org
www.trla.org

Comments

[Jeanne M. Hannah]

Carlos, thank you for your response. I am not surprised to hear about your lack of success in serving process in Mexico, particularly in light of the State Department's Country Reports and the reports on non-compliance with the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspect of International Parental Abduction.

Sadly, the financial and emotional costs of parental abduction are so very high--for both the left-behind parent and also for the children.

Best to you, hoping for a good result for you and yours, Jeanne

[carlos]

Will have to take a look at that. We are still waiting to hear back on a service of process petition from 2009 that was made under the Hague Service Convention and delivered to the Mexican Central Authority per the guidelines published by Hague Permanent Bureau and the Mexican Secretary of Foreign Relations. Actually it's really not accurate to say we are waiting to hear back. We have long since given up on Mexico sending us back any response whatsoever and pursued other avenues.

It's been a while since I looked into this (2009) but I believe there was also a more recent Inter-American Convention on Service of Process from the OAS that Mexico is a party to. My personal impression from trying to serve a subpoena in Mexico was that going through the Inter-American Convention might be the more effective route (though iirc estimates for the turnaround time for that were like 12-24 months and the costs were much higher.)

Suffice to say, international service of process in Mexico can be very difficult and time consuming.