No You Can’t Use Facebook To Serve California Divorce Papers

Okay, I keep reading articles on the internet which makes you believe you can serve divorce papers using Facebook.  The captions say, “Court approves use of Facebook to serve divorce papers” or some similar heading. If you just read the heading one would think you could now actually serve divorce papers using Facebook.

(watch this quick video where we discuss this)


Facebook is not an approved way to serve divorce papers. There are strict guidelines on how service of divorce papers, known as “process of service” is to happen.  There are a few ways to serve divorce papers, however the way it is supposed to be done is by personal service.  This means someone has to personally hand the divorce papers to the person being served.

The reason personal service is necessary is because it is the only way that the court really knows that the person the divorce papers are intended for actually received them.  The person that does the personal service would then complete and sign a proof of service form which would be filed with the court.  That way if there is any dispute on whether the person was served or not the court could call that person in and ask about the details of the service of the divorce papers.