High School

If process serving sounds interesting to you, get a head start now and take courses in English, political science, communication, and any law or business-related courses. Training in a foreign language can also be extremely helpful because process servers may encounter non-English speakers.

Postsecondary Training

Although college is not required, advanced courses in psychology, communication, and business would be of great benefit to a potential process server. You won't find many, if any, college or university majors called process serving. However, any college-level work in legal studies will prepare you for work in this field. The Process Server Institute holds training seminars that focus directly on process serving. This type of specific training will help a new process server more than the general legal studies approach.

Certification or Licensing

States often require process servers to be licensed. Process servers may also need to pass a written examination. People who serve papers on a regular basis usually must register with their particular state.

Other Requirements

States may also require that they be fingerprinted, bonded, and undergo an FBI background check.

No experience is needed to work as a process server, but those with prior work experience will increase their chances of landing a job, getting promoted, and possibly earning higher pay.

Process servers need an understanding of civil law and the proper procedure for delivering documents such as summonses and subpoenas requiring people to appear in court. Some of these people may try to avoid court appearances, so process servers must be skilled at finding them and hand-delivering the proper documents. Process servers should be good problem solvers, skilled at tracking down individuals; they need to be tenacious, well organized, and work effectively in situations with tight deadlines.

Because process serving is a face-to-face job, people who excel in this field are usually bold, confident, and skilled at working with people. Gaining a reputation as reliable and responsible will go a long way with prospective clients who want someone who won't give up on serving papers to people. Because process servers often serve papers to people who don't want them, a certain element of danger is involved. Process servers must be willing to take that risk in some situations.