How federal subpoenas are served: certified mail and in-person delivery.

What the rules require.

Federal criminal subpoenas run under Rule 17: service by delivering a copy to the named person - personal delivery, traditionally by an agent or marshal. Grand jury practice is more flexible in reality: corporations routinely accept service through registered agents or counsel, and prosecutors frequently agree to service by certified mail or email once a lawyer is in the picture. Civil and administrative subpoenas have their own, looser rules.

What the delivery method signals.

Two agents personally serving you at home is not a mail-room decision - it is an opportunity to watch your reaction and, they hope, start a conversation on the doorstep. That conversation is voluntary. Decline it politely; take the papers, take their cards, say counsel will call. Certified mail to a business, by contrast, usually means the government sees the recipient as a records custodian, not a person of interest.

Either way, the clock starts at service. The return date, the preservation duty, and the contempt exposure do not care which envelope was used.

The doorstep protocol.

Accept service - refusing accomplishes nothing and gets documented. Say nothing about the case: “I’ll have my lawyer contact you” is a complete sentence. Do not confirm, deny, explain, or correct. Write down the time, the agents’ names, and every question they asked - that list is intelligence about the investigation, and counsel will want it verbatim.

After the papers land.

Same-day: preserve everything and get the subpoena to counsel. Week one: appearance or production negotiated, status confirmed, scope narrowed. Service is the government’s move; the response is yours, and it is the one that gets graded.

THE AUTHOR

Todd A. Spodek

Managing partner. Second-generation federal defense lawyer - the Netflix defense, the Fox and CNN analyst chair, and two decades of federal courtrooms.

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