The Divide: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap Highlight

So what happens? Many process servers and law firms engage in a wink-wink-nudge-nudge business called gutter service or sewer service, in which the law firm hands the list of summonses to the server, and the server simply dumps them (in the “gutter,” hence the name). In return, the process server hands the law firm an “affidavit of service,” swearing that he properly served the customer. Process service once required a signature of the defendant to prove proper service; now all that’s needed is the server’s own word that he did the job.