(225) 389-3936

The Family Processing Department receives the filed, posted and tracked suits/pleadings in Family matters from the Suit Accounting Department. The documents that require a Judge's signature are forwarded to the Judge's office. If no Order is present, the employees process the pleadings by issuing the necessary documents for service by the Sheriff's Office.

Our personnel are assigned a division and work closely with the four Family Court Judges, processing work from that division and preparing papers for Judges' runs three times daily.

When an attorney or runner wishes to "walk" a pleading through, he brings the filed pleading, signed by the Judge if necessary, to the Family Processing Department and the employee for that division will issue the necessary documents. It is then the responsibility of the attorney or runner to bring the papers to the appropriate Sheriff or private process server.

Once the pleadings are processed, they are tracked on the computer and forwarded to the Record Room, where the pleadings are microfilmed and filed into the records.

** Note: A post office box is not a sufficient address. The Sheriff's Office will not attempt service without a street address.**

Processing is further delayed when originals are filed in the Judge's Office rather than the Clerk's Office. Once these pleadings are received in the Clerk's Office, the papers cannot be processed until they have been filed, costs approved and posted to the system.

In addition, the Family Processing Department also receives pleadings directly from the Judge's Office. Some of these pleadings have been mailed to the Judge without being filed first. We cannot issue any documents until we have sent the pleading to the Suit Accounting Department for "Cost OK" stamp & file date (allowing up to 2 days for return to Family Processing). Others have been walked through and are awaiting for a Judge's signature.

If the service is out of parish, it will be issued and mailed to the Sheriff of that parish. The attorney may choose to mail it or have someone hand carry it to the Sheriff of that parish. If the service is long arm, it will be issued and returned to the requesting attorney.