JBCC-approved continuing education for Texas certified process servers. Eight hours including your two mandatory ethics hours — self-paced, on any device, current to the December 2024 amendments most courses still haven’t caught up to.
A one-letter difference in a street name voided a default judgment in 2020. A missing affidavit cost a plaintiff $475,000. A return that said “citation” but not “petition” undid a default on appeal.
Those aren’t hypotheticals — they are Spanton, Wilson and Furst, and every one of them turned on something a process server did or didn’t write down. You’ll work through all four, with the real facts, and leave knowing exactly what to do differently on Monday.
When it’s up, watch it before you decide. It is the clearest ninety seconds on what separates this from a checkbox.
Rule 107’s declaration form changed on December 1, 2024. Rule 116 added the OCA website posting in 2020. Rule 21a’s three-day rule stopped applying to email in 2014. If your last CE course taught you otherwise, it was teaching stale law.
Officer safety, the fatal funnel, retreat triggers, hostile-recipient de-escalation, gated communities and what a gate guard can and cannot do. Written by someone who has done the work.
Chapter 1702 is the most misunderstood statute in this business. You’ll learn exactly what you may do on a locate — and what requires a PI license — with the statutory exemption most servers don’t know protects them.
Seat time, quiz attempts and exam results are logged and retained for five years. If JBCC ever asks, the record exists.
Durations are the approved seat times. Each module ends in a short quiz you need 80% on to unlock the next — retakes unlimited.
What you may serve and what you may not. Eviction citations, writs requiring possession, criminal process — and the one statute that makes revocation mandatory. Plus the Rule 6 Sunday prohibition that voids service most servers have never heard of.
Rules 99 through 119 as a working reference. Citation elements, the answer deadline, subpoenas and the witness fee (it changed in 2023), family-law and injunction service, and the 2020 electronic-service amendment.
Personal, substituted, certified mail, publication, and court-ordered electronic service. When each is authorized, how to execute it, and how to document it so it survives a motion to quash.
Individuals, minors, incapacitated persons, corporations and LLCs, counties and cities and school districts, federal agencies, non-residents. Who to serve, and the Secretary of State mechanics that trip up experienced servers.
The Chapter 1702 bright line. What address verification you may do, what locate work requires a PI license, when to refer. Then pre-attempt research, on-scene awareness, body cameras, de-escalation, and retreat triggers.
Military-status affidavits and the DMDC search. The renewal cycle, the fee ladder, and the one-year cliff where certification terminates permanently. Then the actual JBCC complaint and appeal process — not the version most materials get wrong.
Rule 107 element by element. Return versus affidavit of non-service. Annotated good and bad returns you’ll mark up yourself. The current declaration form, and record retention.
The JBCC Code of Ethics as it is actually written. Sewer service, backdating, conflicts, confidentiality, mandatory reporting. Then four landmark Texas opinions with the real facts and what each one means for your returns.
Create your account and set up two-factor authentication. The name on your account must match your JBCC certification — it is what prints on your certificate.
Eight modules, narrated, on any device. Start and stop as often as you like — your progress and your time are saved automatically.
A short quiz ends each module. Score 80% to unlock the next one. Retakes are unlimited — the point is that you know it, not that you guessed it.
Fifty questions, sixty minutes, 70% to pass. One retake is included, after a structured review of what you missed. This is Encore Legal Academy’s own assessment for course credit — it is not a state examination and does not replace one.
Issued immediately on passing, showing 8.0 CE hours including 2.0 ethics hours, your name, the completion date and JBCC Program No. PSC20260305. Ready to submit with your renewal.
Shane entered process serving in 2004 as a court filer at a national legal-services firm and worked up through operations and management to regional manager over the State of Texas. In 2014 he founded Encore Legal Process, Inc., delivering process serving, skip tracing and e-filing to attorneys, corporate legal departments and litigation-support firms across Texas.
Across his career he has personally executed or overseen well over 100,000 service-of-process assignments.
Founder & Lead Instructor, Encore Legal Academy
Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Encore Legal Process, Inc.
JBCC Certified Process Server #10437
No subscription, no upsells and no tiers to work out. Twelve months of access from the day you enroll.
Your full Texas renewal requirement — all eight CE hours, including the two ethics hours.
Agencies and firms enrolling several servers get central billing and a completion report for your files. Rates depend on how many seats you need.
Servers who complete the course are offered a free listing in the Academy process server directory. The course earns the listing — it is not something you buy, and there is nothing to join first.
Anything not answered here, email support@encorelegalacademy.com — that reaches us faster than the phone.
Your full Texas renewal requirement, including the ethics hours, in a course that will actually change how you write a return.