Editing Service of process (section)

{{short description|Official process of notifying someone of legal proceedings}}
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{{Globalize|article|USA|2name=the United States|date=December 2010}}
{{More footnotes needed|date=December 2008}}
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{{Civil procedure (United States)}}
Each [[legal jurisdiction]] has rules and discrete terminology regarding the appropriate procedures for serving legal documents on a person being [[lawsuit|sued]] or subject to legal proceedings. In the [[United States legal system|U.S. legal system]], '''service of process''' is the procedure by which a party to a lawsuit gives an appropriate notice of initial legal action to another party (such as a defendant), [[court]], or [[Government agency|administrative body]] in an effort to exercise [[jurisdiction]] over that person so as to force that person to respond to the proceeding in a court, body, or other tribunal. Notice is furnished by delivering a set of court documents (called "[[legal process|process]]") to the person to be served.