You Filed Your Case. Now It Has to Be Served — Correctly.

Filing and serving are two different things

When you e-file a case in Illinois — most civil cases are filed electronically through the state's eFileIL system — the court opens your case and issues a summons. That summons does nothing until the other side is formally served. Filing tells the court you want to sue someone. Service is what legally puts that person on notice and gives the court power over them. Skip it, botch it, or do it late, and the court can't move your case forward.

Illinois courts publish helpful self-help material for people without lawyers (see the Information for Filers Without Lawyers resource). What those resources can't do is get your defendant physically served — that's where a lot of self-represented cases stall.

The service mistakes that get cases dismissed

These are the problems we're hired to fix after someone has already tried to handle service themselves:

• Serving yourself. In Illinois a party to the case cannot serve their own papers. Service must be made by the sheriff or a licensed, court-appointed special process server (735 ILCS 5/2-202).
• Serving a stale address. The address on the complaint is often where the defendant used to live. Serving an old address — or the wrong apartment — doesn't count.
• Improper substitute or "abode" service. Leaving papers with the wrong person, or without meeting the requirements of 735 ILCS 5/2-203, is routinely challenged and thrown out.
• No valid proof of service. The court needs a proper, often notarized affidavit of service — with who was served, when, where, and how. A missing or defective affidavit stalls the case.
• Missing the deadline. Summonses have return dates and courts have timelines. Letting them lapse can force you to start over with an alias summons.

How Illinois service actually works

How we help self-represented filers

You don't need to be a law firm to hire a licensed process server. We work directly with individuals who've filed their own cases and just need the defendant served right:

• Licensed special process service across Cook County and Chicagoland
• Skip tracing to locate defendants who have moved or are avoiding service
• Notarized affidavits of service built to hold up under challenge
• Attempt logs and GPS-verified service details for due-diligence questions
• Rush and evasive-subject service when a court date is coming up

Eviction & termination notices: 5-day, 10-day, 30-day

If you're a landlord, the eviction starts long before the courthouse. Illinois requires the right written notice to be properly served first — and if that notice is wrong or served improperly, the whole eviction can be thrown out and you start over. These are the three notices we serve most often:

We serve all three with proper documentation — a dated affidavit showing exactly how and when the tenant was served — so your notice holds up if the case goes to court. We also serve the eviction summons and complaint once the case is filed.

Who can serve a notice — and why landlords hire a licensed server

Illinois lets a landlord or their agent serve the pre-suit 5-, 10-, or 30-day notice. But once the eviction is filed, the summons must be served by the sheriff or a court-appointed licensed special process server under 735 ILCS 5/2-202 — the landlord can't serve that themselves. The most common reason evictions get tossed isn't the rent dispute; it's a notice or summons that was served improperly or can't be proven.

That's why landlords and attorneys hire a licensed process server even for the early notice:

• A neutral, court-ready affidavit. Notarized proof with the date, time, place, and manner of service — not a landlord's word against the tenant's.
• Photo and attempt documentation that holds up if the tenant claims they were never served.
• Evasive tenants handled. We make multiple attempts and, when a tenant dodges service, escalate to stakeout service.
• No credibility problem. A licensed third party serving the notice removes the "you never gave it to me" defense that sinks self-served evictions.

What it costs

Flat, transparent pricing — no mileage, no hidden fees:

• $225 flat — standard service of a notice, summons, or other document, with up to three attempts and photo documentation.
• $650 — hard-to-serve or evasive subjects, which includes dedicated stakeout surveillance to make service.
• Additional time, if needed, is billed at $200/hr. See full pricing & rates or call for a quote on your matter.

Chicago (RLTO) and Cook County (Residential Tenant Landlord Ordinance) can require different notice periods, language, or additional steps than the statewide rules above. Confirm the exact notice and timeline for your property with an attorney before serving.