Service is the whole game.

If service is wrong, nothing that follows is right. A short tour through CCP §1010.6, §1013a, and the proof-of-service declaration that holds up.

The fastest way to lose a motion you should have won is to serve it on the wrong email, on the wrong day, with the wrong proof. Service is the whole game because service is the only thing the court can verify cheaply. Get it tight.

Two statutes do almost all of the work. Code of Civil Procedure section 1010.6 governs electronic service — who has to consent to it, what counts as a designated address, when you can rely on it. Section 1013a governs the proof-of-service declaration itself — who signs, what they swear to, what counts as a "manner" of service. Read both. Print them. Tape them to the inside of the binder.

The designated address rule

If you have not formally designated an electronic service address, the court and opposing counsel are entitled to use the one already on the docket. That can be a problem when the docket reflects an email you no longer monitor. Fix it: file a notice of change of address. The form is short. The consequences of not filing it can include missing a hearing because notice went somewhere you do not look.

The third-party server problem

If a friend or assistant serves your papers, that friend or assistant signs the proof of service — not you. The §1013a declaration must come from the person who actually executed the service, not from the litigant on whose behalf the service was made. Two declarations, not one, when the litigant also touched the workflow.

Episode 04 takes the next step into discovery, where service rules get strict in different ways.