Personal service is required because the legal system wants to make sure that a defendant in a lawsuit knows about the lawsuit and has a chance to defend his or herself. Usually, personal service has to be done by a person over 18 who is not involved in the lawsuit. A process server is a person who delivers complaints as a job.

Being served personally does not mean that the person being sued has to accept the complaint directly from the process server. If this was the only way a lawsuit could start, people might be able to duck the lawsuit by ducking the process server. Hiding from the process server may delay the the start, but it won’t stop it.

If the process server tries but can’t find you, then the plaintiff can ask the judge to serve you in a different way — for example, by publishing notice of the lawsuit in a newspaper, posting the complaint at your last known address.

So the bottom line is, you can delay the start of a lawsuit by avoiding the process server, but you can’t stop the suit by hiding from the server.

You’ve been sued when someone has filed a complaint with the court. In order for the lawsuit to properly begin, you have to be “served” with the complaint. Being served means that you got “official” notice of the lawsuit. I’ll talk about the different types of proper service in another post.

Keep in mind that each court has its own rules about what exactly needs to happen to start a lawsuit — the things I talk about below are general rules, but your state might tweak them slightly. Also, some types of lawsuits, such as restraining orders or protection from abuse order, can start before you actually get notice of them.

You can tell it’s a complaint because at the top of the first page, it will have the name of a court (as in “In the Circuit Court of the State of Oregon for the County of Multnomah), the name of the person suing you and your name.

Usually, the complaint will have something called a “summons.” This paper is usually in front of the complaint and tells you you’re being sued, tells you that you should respond within a specific period of time, and gives you information about getting an attorney — usually the number of the state bar’s referral service and/or legal aid.

If you get a letter from an attorney threatening to take legal action against you, that doesn’t mean you’ve been sued. You might be, but the letter isn’t enough to start a lawsuit.

Apparently, the biggest source of client unhappiness with their lawyer is lack of communication — my lawyer doesn’t listen to what I say and I don’t understand what my lawyer says.

Obviously, lawyers need to work much harder at being good listeners and learning to speak plain English. But it’s also up to the prospective client to make sure they feel they can talk to and understand a lawyer before hiring the lawyer.

One of the most important tools a lawyer has is her ability to communicate – basically, we try to convince people that we’re right. And there is no right way to be a good communicator — some people do great with table-thumping and using big word, others are low-key but effective.

So one way to judge the quality of your lawyer is how she talks with you. If your lawyer listens to you, understands your story, and explains to you how the law affects your story in a way you understand — then chances are, you’ve probably found a good lawyer.

So, make sure you can talk to your lawyer and your lawyer can talk with you.

S met with Bad Lawyer about her possible sexual harassment case. It turns out that Bad Lawyer told his friend, a bar owner, about S’s case. When S went to that particular bar, she was humiliated to find out that the owner knew all the intimate details of her case. But it gets worse — S hadn’t hired Bad Lawyer, she had just gone to him for a consultation. When she called Bad Lawyer to complain about Bad Lawyer’s big mouth, she ended up getting yelled at for not paying the bill for the consultation.

The good lawyer in this story is S’s bankruptcy attorney.  When Good Lawyer heard about what had happened to S, he immediately called Bad Lawyer and yelled at him for giving out S’s confidential information. Good Lawyer also gave S some practical advice, which is something attorneys can really stink at — giving good, practical advice. He told S that she could complain about Bad Lawyer because lawyers are so not supposed to talk about a client’s business to other people, but making a complaint like that is hard to prove and would probably turn into a huge hassle. Good Lawyer said that the easiest thing that S could do to deal with the situation was to put Bad Lawyer’s bill in her bankruptcy petition, which means she won’t have to pay it.

There are some morals to this story. Both these lawyers were recommended to S by her friends. Finding a lawyer by asking your friends if they know anyone is one method I highly recommend. But you need more than just a name, you need to know why your friends are recommending a particular lawyer.

One of S’s friends recommended Good Lawyer because the friend had hired Good Lawyer for his own case. Good Lawyer remembered (or at least pretended to remember) S’s friend. So double points for Good Lawyer — he was recommended by a satisfied client and he was invested enough in his former clients to remember them.

Another friend of S’s recommended Bad Lawyer, because Bad Lawyer was “a buddy” of his. Also, S’s friend promised S that she wouldn’t have to worry about paying the consultation fee, because Bad Lawyer was “a buddy of mine.” So two lessons here.  One lesson is, if you’re asking for a recommendation, make sure that your recommender has a legit reason for their recommendation. The second lesson is, if you’re having a consultation with a lawyer, make sure that you ask the lawyer whether the consultation is free before the consultation starts.

The problem with this approach is that, while most people have a mechanic and a doctor, not all of them have a lawyer.

It’s always worthwhile contact your local or state bar association. Most bar associations have a referral program that will give you the names of two or three lawyers who have experience with your legal problem.

Do some web searches — one of the most basic is your city or zip code and the type of lawyer you need. If you’re not sure what type of lawyer you need, here’s where the bar referral program can come in handy — most of them will help you identify what your legal problem is and the type of lawyer you probably want.

Remember, an attorney’s webpage is advertising, it’s supposed to make the lawyer look good.  A good site should still give you a sense of the lawyer’s personality.

No matter how you get the referrals, make sure that the attorney doesn’t have any disciplinary action against them. You should be able to look up the lawyer on the state bar association’s website or the state Supreme Court’s website. If the attorney is in “good standing,” then he or she is up-to-date on their law license fees, has complied with the required Continuing Legal Education requirements, and is not currently disbarred or suspended from practicing law.

The American Bar Association has a great webpage, findlegalhelp.org that gives you one-stop access to all the information I discussed above — local bar association referral services, free and low-cost legal aid, and information on how to check on attorney licensing. Simply chose your state from the main page.

A common reaction to getting sued is, well, not to deal with it. No one wants to get sued and most people don’t really know what to do — so they have a tendency just to ignore the problem.

Not dealing with it is a really bad idea, because it will lead to a default judgment. If you get served with a complaint, you get legal advice right away and I’m not just saying this because I’m a lawyer. Once you get a default judgment against you, it can be extremely hard, or even impossible, to do anything about it later. If someone’s suing you for money, once they get the default judgment, they can start to collect their money.

I know most people don’t have a lawyer, so I’m  going to talk about some ways to find a lawyer and things to think about when hiring a lawyer in a later post.

So this leads me to my first topic — what’s the difference between criminal law and civil law? The easiest answer is that civil law is everything that’s not criminal law. Another way to think of it is that civil law deals with disputes between people and criminal law deals with disputes between the State (i.e. the police, the prosecutor, the government) and people.