What Counts as Service of Process in Michigan?

Service of process is the formal, legally required way a court or an opposing party puts your business on notice that it's being sued. It isn't a phone call, a text, or an email from someone's lawyer — it's a physical hand-delivery of papers to whoever is on file as your resident agent, and Michigan law treats that delivery as your official notice, whether you personally saw it arrive or not.

What Gets Delivered as Service of Process

A process server, court officer, or sheriff can hand your resident agent several kinds of documents:

• Summons and complaint — the paperwork that opens a lawsuit against your business
• Subpoenas — orders to testify or produce records
• Court orders — restraining orders, injunctions, and similar directives
• Writs of garnishment — attempts to collect a judgment straight from a bank account
• Other formal notices connected to an active or threatened case

Under Michigan Court Rule 2.108, a defendant generally has 21 days to respond after being served within Michigan (28 days if served outside the state). Miss that window and a court can enter a default judgment without ever hearing your side of the story.

Why LARA Requires a Resident Agent for This

Every LLC, corporation, and foreign-qualified entity registered with the Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs must keep a resident agent on file with a physical Michigan street address available during normal business hours. That address is the one fixed point courts and process servers use to reach your business — regardless of whether you're in Detroit, working from another state, or traveling.

An individual serving as resident agent must be a Michigan resident, 18 or older, and personally available at that address during the business week. A business entity acting as agent must itself be authorized to operate in Michigan. Either way, the obligation runs continuously for as long as the entity exists — there's no grace period for a lapsed agent.

What Happens the Moment Papers Are Delivered

When someone hands documents to your resident agent, three things happen without delay:

1. Acceptance. We take custody of the papers on your entity's behalf.
2. Scanning. The documents are digitized the same business day — always, at no charge, no matter how many times it happens.
3. Notification. You get an email with the scan attached and a copy waiting in your online portal, so you're reading it the day it lands on our desk, not days later after it sits in a stack of mail.

The paper original stays on file at our office. Want it physically mailed to you instead of just scanned? That's available for a per-piece charge — most clients only need the digital copy to move quickly, so we don't mail originals out automatically.

What's at Stake if a Delivery Is Missed

Default judgment. Without a timely response, the court can rule against your business automatically — no hearing, no defense heard.

Less time to react. Even a short delay in learning about a lawsuit eats into the days you have to line up an attorney and respond.

Downstream damage. Default judgments can lead to garnished accounts, liens against business property, and a dent in your credit standing.

Cost to fix it. Undoing a default judgment after the fact usually means hiring a lawyer and filing a formal motion, with no guarantee the court grants it.

Why This Beats Being Your Own Agent

List yourself as resident agent and service of process lands wherever your address is on file — your home, in front of a client, or a location you don't check every day if your work has you moving around.

Using our service instead gets you:

• A staffed point of contact watching for deliveries during business hours, five days a week
• Same-day scans, not a pile of mail that gets opened whenever
• Privacy — our Michigan address sits on your LARA filings instead of your home address
• A timestamped portal record of exactly when something arrived, useful if the timing of service is ever disputed

Covered Under Your $99/Year

Service-of-process handling for Michigan is part of the standard $99/year resident agent plan — not an upsell, not a separate line item. Scanning and digital delivery cost nothing extra; a mailed paper original, if you want one, is billed per piece.

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Legal Disclaimer

This page is general information, not legal advice. How service of process applies to your situation depends on the type of case and the facts involved. If you've been served, or think you might have been, talk to a Michigan attorney. We handle resident agent service — we don't practice law.