Canada's first such on-demand mobile app addresses COVID-19 situation where parties often home-based
Court Runner Inc. has introduced the country’s first on-demand mobile application that allows users to order the service of process via smartphone or tablet and keep track of the real-time progress and activities impacting the service of their document.
The app connects with professional process servers who work with individual parties, startup companies, businesses and law firms, and facilitates the complete fulfillment of the process-serving step. The app notifies the client of the date and time when the other party has received the document.
The app aims to make the step of serving legal papers simple, accessible, trustworthy, efficient, economical, organized and legally recognized. The functions performed by the app are especially relevant in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, where lawyers, paralegals and clients are increasingly based at home and handling legal matters through mobile means.
“We can no longer assume that people are in the office,” said a spokesperson for the company in the news release. “The old methods of ordering service of process do not work well today.”
Without the app, users must personally engage in process serving, which takes time and effort, particularly for individuals unfamiliar with how to navigate this aspect of the legal system, or will have to incur the extra costs of asking their firms to accomplish the service of process on their behalf, the company stated in its news release.
“Process servers are similarly mobile, so we thought, why not enable people to order process serving using a smartphone,” said the spokesperson about the conception of the app.
The app also has a feature for ordering court filings, to enable users to effect the entry of their documents in the official record of the proceeding. It can also assist users in the production of the affidavit of service, to confirm that their legal papers have been received and to ensure that the users can move forward with their trials.
Court Runner can be downloaded for the iOS platform, through the Apple App Store, and for the Android platform, through the Google Play Store, as well as through the company’s website.
