Attorney’s Litigation Support Services

On September 19th 2016, I (Deb [redacted]) was contacted by Nikki [redacted] in regards to serving legal documents on her ex-husband. She requested that she would like service to be effected at a time and place that their children not be present. After some discussion Ms. [redacted] suggested that Sunday...

(9/25) would be a good time to try and serve the documents as her and the defendant would be exchanging the children. I informed Ms. [redacted] that my fee for serving the documents at that particular place and time would be $70.00, to which she agreed. The morning of 9/25 I received a message from Ms. [redacted] stating that our arrangement would have to change as she was feeling ill. In doing so our original agreement was subject to change, as I did indicate that my fee for serving her ex-husband corresponded with the arrangement we had made consisting of me making myself available on Sunday 9/25 to effect the serve. Over the next week Ms. [redacted] would email me advising me that her ex-husband would be at this place and time that day. Due to the nature of my business, I often work from my vehicle and travel to many different counties. Therefore with such little notice I was not able to make myself available or get to the particular location in time to effect the serve. At this point I still had decided not to change my fee, even though Ms. [redacted] is the one who broke our original agreement. On October 10th, Ms. [redacted] informed me that her ex husband would be dropping of their children at [redacted] at 6:00 pm on 10/13. I made arrangements with my assistant, who is my son, to serve Ms. [redacted]'s ex-husband at that place and time. It is important to note that 10/13 was also the last possible day for these particular documents to be served according to the Wisconsin statutes regarding legitimate service. On 10/13 I informed Ms. [redacted] that I was going to be in a remote area of Wisconsin for the afternoon and evening due to a prior work/client obligation. I did receive a message from Ms. [redacted] sometime around 3:00 pm the day of 10/13 telling me that her ex-husbands plans had changed. Because of the remote location I was in however, I did not receive that message until hours later when I was on my way back to [redacted]. Of course this is not Ms. [redacted]'s fault that I had not received her message, however her ex-husbands change of plans does break the agreement we had again set in place to serve her ex-husband at [redacted] at 6:00 pm. My assistant did then reach out to Ms. [redacted], at approximately 6:40 pm on 10/13 to tell her that her ex-husband never showed up. Ms. [redacted] then directed my assistant to go to [redacted] pizza located on [redacted], which is all the way across town, because she believed her ex-husband and children to be there. My assistant, knowing that today was the last day to serve these documents, changed his plans of serving documents in [redacted] county WI, in an attempt to go above and beyond for Ms. [redacted] headed for [redacted]. Upon arrival there he attempted to locate the ex-husband but determined that he was not there. My assistant then went to the ex-husbands home address and found him there and served the documents at approximately 7:50 pm. He also contacted Ms. [redacted] that evening and let her know that he had successfully served the papers for her. When I broached the subject of my fee, considering all the effort, resources, and time it took to complete this job for Ms. [redacted], she immediately turned hostile, told me I was in the "wrong business" and began calling me a "crook". She was never invoiced any additional money for this job, and the affidavit or proof of service was filed at the [redacted] Courthouse, a task we offered to do for Ms. [redacted] that again went above and beyond a routine service, and a task that she took us up on.