Lawyers to serve loan defaulters on Facebook

In an Australian first, a couple of local lawyers, Mark McCormack and Jason Oliver plan to serve court documents to defendants via their Facebook page.

In an Australian first, a couple of local lawyers, Mark McCormack and Jason Oliver plan to serve court documents to defendants via their Facebook page.

The lawyers have been pursuing a couple of business partners that defaulted on a six figure loan… unable to contact them via traditional means the ingenious lawyers set about searching for them on Facebook. They came up trumps when they discovered one defendants Facebook page – and listed as a friend was the other defendant…

Armed with this information the lawyers sought a court order to allow them to serve a default judgment through Facebook..

They were granted permission in the ACT Supreme Court to serve the default judgment after convincing the court that they had a reasonable prospect of success in serving the order through this method.

“We got the idea ourselves in the course of looking at alternative methods of bringing the matter to the defendants’ attention,” said McCormack.

“They weren’t available at their residence. They no longer worked at the place given in some documents as the last place of their employment.”

“This is really a method of last resort in circumstances where we’re unable to effect service personally.”

Source: news.com.au