Served 123 LLC domesticates and serves out-of-state and tribal-court subpoenas across all 66 South Dakota counties under the Uniform Interstate Depositions and Discovery Act, SDCL 15-6-28.1 through 15-6-28.6, adopted by Supreme Court Rule 12-02 and in force since July 1, 2012. We'll be straight with you: South Dakota's version is one of the most rewritten in the country, and the national guides miss what matters — the quash-rights advisory the statute requires on the face of every issued subpoena, the service rule that frees a witness to ignore an untendered subpoena, the ten-day objection window everyone assumes is fourteen, and the clause that puts the requesting attorney under South Dakota sanctions jurisdiction. We draft to the statute's own checklist, serve summons-style with the $20 tender in hand and the payment recited in the return, and front the cheapest court costs in America — a two-dollar statutory issuance fee.
We checked the national guides before writing this page, and none of them mention the sentence that decides whether your South Dakota subpoena is even valid. SDCL 15-6-28.3(C)(ii) requires the issued subpoena to advise the witness of the right to petition the South Dakota court to quash or modify it — a mandatory advisory, printed on the face. “Mirror the foreign subpoena” — the advice on every competitor page — produces a document that fails the statute’s own checklist. The misses don’t stop there: one current guide pastes a venue rule — “where the witness resides, works, or where documents or evidence are located” — that appears nowhere in South Dakota’s text, and its summary of the jurisdiction clause skips romanette (iv), the one that lets South Dakota sanction the requesting attorney. We draft to the statute, line by line, and we link every line so you can check us.
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South Dakota adopted the Uniform Interstate Depositions and Discovery Act by Supreme Court Rule 12-02, enacted as SL 2012, ch 256 and codified at SDCL 15-6-28.1 through 15-6-28.6, effective July 1, 2012. The foreign subpoena goes to a clerk of court in the county in which discovery is sought; the clerk shall promptly issue; the request is not an appearance — though it does create South Dakota jurisdiction to enforce, quash, protect, and sanction the requesting attorney. The issued subpoena must do three things most guides never mention: conform to South Dakota’s rules first, carry the contact block, and advise the witness of the right to petition to quash or modify. Costs are the lowest in the country: a $2.00 statutory issuance fee under SDCL 16-2-29, with the schedule’s catch-all at $25.
South Dakota’s UIDDA arrived through the judiciary: Supreme Court Rule 12-02, enacted as SL 2012, ch 256 and effective July 1, 2012, codified inside the civil-procedure chapter at SDCL 15-6-28.1 through 15-6-28.6. The definitions track the uniform act — a subpoena is any document however denominated, and “state” includes a federally recognized Indian tribe, which matters enormously here: South Dakota is home to nine federally recognized tribes, and a subpoena from a tribal court of record travels the same channel as one from New York. The procedural spine is § 15-6-28.3: submit the foreign subpoena to a clerk of court in the county in which discovery is sought, and the clerk shall promptly issue. The request does not constitute an appearance — but South Dakota rewrote what comes next, and this is where every national guide goes quiet. The same subsection says the request creates the necessary jurisdiction in South Dakota to enforce the subpoena, quash or modify it, issue protective orders — and, in romanette (iv), to “impose sanctions on the attorney requesting the issuance” for anything that would violate the South Dakota Rules of Civil Procedure. Request a South Dakota subpoena and you have placed yourself under South Dakota’s disciplinary reach. The flip side is generous: an attorney not licensed in South Dakota may petition to enforce, respond to motions, and litigate the whole subpoena dispute “without being admitted pro hac vice” — a right almost no other state’s version grants.
Then comes subsection (C) — the statute’s own drafting checklist, and the reason we say most domesticated South Dakota subpoenas are built wrong. The issued subpoena must conform to the South Dakota Rules of Civil Procedure first — it may incorporate the foreign terms only “so long as they conform” — must carry the names, addresses, and telephone numbers of all counsel and unrepresented parties, and must “advise the person to whom the subpoena is directed that such a person has a right to petition the South Dakota court to quash or modify the subpoena under § 15-6-45(b).” A mandatory quash-rights advisory, printed on the face of the document. Photocopy your home-state subpoena onto South Dakota paper — the workflow every guide teaches — and you have produced a subpoena that fails the statute’s checklist on its face. We draft the advisory in, every time.
Service is where the second trap lives. Under § 15-6-45(c), a subpoena is served in the same manner as a summons — no service by publication — by anyone qualified to serve process, far enough in advance for the witness to actually travel. And then the rule does something blunt: at the time of service, the fees for one day’s attendance and the mileage allowed by law must be tendered — § 19-5-1’s $20 per day plus mileage at the state rate, for each mile actually and necessarily traveled — the return of service must “state the fact of such payment, or the signed waiver,” and “if such fees and mileage be not paid or waived, the witness shall not be obliged to obey the subpoena.” No tender, no obligation — the rule says it outright, and a witness may also demand each new day’s fee at the commencement of each day after the first and walk if it isn’t paid. The economics on the court side, at least, are the gentlest in the nation: under SDCL 16-2-29, issuing a subpoena in a civil case costs two dollars, and the schedule’s catch-all for matters not otherwise provided for is twenty-five dollars — uniform statewide, because South Dakota’s clerks all work for one Unified Judicial System. The legislature just touched the schedule — SL 2026, ch 92, effective July 1, 2026 — and the subpoena line is still two dollars. We run all of it, and we link every line.
South Dakota didn't leave drafting to custom — § 15-6-28.3(C) is a three-part checklist, and the advisory in romanette (ii) is the line every other guide misses.
A subpoena issued under subsection (B) must:
Read romanette (i) carefully: South Dakota inverted the uniform act. The default everywhere else is “incorporate the foreign terms”; here the subpoena conforms to the South Dakota Rules of Civil Procedure first and may carry your foreign terms only so long as they conform. Romanette (ii) is the advisory — the right to petition to quash or modify under § 15-6-45(b), stated on the face. We build all three requirements into every South Dakota subpoena we prepare, which is exactly what a template that mirrors your home-state form cannot do.
Rule 45 forks every domesticated subpoena into one of two tracks — one built around the tender at the door and attendance limits, the other around party notice and a ten-day objection window everyone assumes is fourteen.
Served in the same manner as a summons — no publication — with the $20 day's fee and state-rate mileage tendered at service and the payment or signed waiver recited in the return. Attendance has hard limits: a South Dakota resident may be required to attend only in the county where they reside, are employed, or transact business in person; a nonresident only in the county where served.
Summons manner · $20 + mileage at service · Return recites payment · County limitsBefore a subpoena commanding documents is served on the witness, a notice and copy must be served on each party — § 15-6-45(b), tightened by Supreme Court Rule 19-16. The recipient then has ten days — not the fourteen most templates assume — to serve written objection, and the quash standard is the vintage one: unreasonable and oppressive, with cost-advancement as the court's middle option.
Notice to all parties first · 10-day objection · Unreasonable-and-oppressive standardBoth tracks carry the same blunt enforcement rule: under § 15-6-45(c), “if such fees and mileage be not paid or waived, the witness shall not be obliged to obey the subpoena” — and contempt under § 15-6-45(f) reaches only disobedience without adequate excuse. An untendered subpoena is unenforceable by the rule’s own text. We tender at the door, get the waiver signed when the witness declines it, and recite either one in the return — so your subpoena holds.
From intake to a return that recites the tender — the statute's checklist drafted in, the cheapest fees in America fronted, the notice run, and summons-style service done right.
Upload the out-of-state or tribal-court subpoena with the South Dakota county where discovery will happen. We verify attendance venue at intake — a resident witness can be required to appear only in the county where they reside, are employed, or transact business in person, and a nonresident only where served — so the deposition is set where the rule allows.
We build the South Dakota subpoena § 15-6-28.3(C) describes: conformed to the South Dakota Rules of Civil Procedure first, your foreign terms carried so long as they conform, the quash-rights advisory printed on the face, and the full contact block — names, addresses, and telephone numbers of every counsel of record and unrepresented party.
Our representative files with the clerk of courts for the discovery county — a state office of the Unified Judicial System, so the statutory schedule is identical at all 66 counters. We front the exact cost under SDCL 16-2-29: the $2.00 subpoena-issuance line, plus the $25.00 catch-all where the clerk opens a miscellaneous file — itemized either way.
The clerk shall promptly issue under § 15-6-28.3(B). The request is not an appearance — and if a dispute later erupts, the statute lets your out-of-state attorney petition, enforce, and respond without being admitted pro hac vice. We report issuance back the day it happens.
For subpoenas commanding documents, § 15-6-45(b) runs first: a notice and copy of the subpoena is served on each party before the witness ever sees it. The witness’s ten-day written-objection window is calendared from service — and any quash fight happens in the discovery county under § 15-6-28.6, on the unreasonable-and-oppressive standard.
Service by our South Dakota servers in the same manner as a summons — personal, never by publication — timed sufficiently in advance for the witness to travel, with the § 19-5-1 tender at the door: $20 for the day plus state-rate mileage. The return states the payment or the signed waiver, exactly as § 15-6-45(c) requires — because an untendered subpoena binds no one — and you receive a filing-ready affidavit (PDF) that recites it.
Before July 1, 2012, an out-of-state subpoena had no force in South Dakota — discovery ran on commissions and letters presented to South Dakota courts, witness by witness.
The complete framework — the Supreme Court rule, the drafting checklist, the service machinery, and the fee lines — each linked from the sections above.
| Authority | Subject | Key requirement |
|---|---|---|
| SL 2012, ch 256 | Adoption | Supreme Court Rule 12-02, effective July 1, 2012 — South Dakota's UIDDA, codified inside the civil-procedure chapter at §§ 15-6-28.1 through 15-6-28.6 |
| § 15-6-28.2 | Definitions | A subpoena is a document, however denominated, commanding testimony, production, or inspection; “state” includes DC, Puerto Rico, the USVI, a federally recognized Indian tribe, and the territories |
| § 15-6-28.3(A) | Channel + Jurisdiction | Submit the foreign subpoena to a clerk of court in the county where discovery is sought; not an appearance — but jurisdiction is created to enforce, quash or modify, issue protective orders, and impose sanctions on the requesting attorney; out-of-state attorneys may litigate subpoena disputes without pro hac vice admission |
| § 15-6-28.3(B)–(C) | Issuance + Checklist | The clerk shall promptly issue a subpoena that conforms to the South Dakota Rules of Civil Procedure first, advises the witness of the right to petition to quash or modify under § 15-6-45(b), and carries the names, addresses, and telephone numbers of all counsel and unrepresented parties |
| § 15-6-28.4 + -28.5 | Rules Welded On | Service must comply with § 15-6-45(c), and all other provisions of § 15-6-45 — witness fees, expenses, place of examination, attendance — apply to every domesticated subpoena |
| § 15-6-45(a) | Issuance Generally | Clerks, judges, magistrates, notaries public, and referees may issue; a South Dakota bar member may issue as attorney of record — transmitting a copy to the clerk for public filing — a rule for South Dakota cases, not a foreign-subpoena channel |
| § 15-6-45(b) | Records + Notice | Before a documents subpoena is served on the witness, a notice and copy must be served on each party; the court may quash or modify if unreasonable and oppressive, or condition denial on advancement of production costs — last amended by Supreme Court Rule 19-16 |
| § 15-6-45(c) | Service + Tender | Service in the same manner as a summons, never by publication, sufficiently in advance for travel; the $20 fee and mileage tendered at service; the return must state the payment or signed waiver — and if not paid or waived, the witness is not obliged to obey |
| § 15-6-45(d) | Depositions + 10 Days | Deposition notice authorizes issuance; a ten-day written-objection window on inspection and copying; a resident attends only in the county of residence, employment, or in-person business — a nonresident only in the county where served |
| § 15-6-45(f) | Contempt | Failure without adequate excuse to obey a subpoena may be deemed contempt of the court where the action is pending or the issuing court |
| § 19-5-1 + § 3-9-1 | Witness Fees | $20 for each day's attendance before any court, board, or tribunal, plus mileage at the state rate for each mile actually and necessarily traveled — with no fee to a witness serving a period of incarceration |
| SDCL 16-2-29 | Court Costs | Two dollars to issue a subpoena in a civil case; twenty-five dollars for all matters not otherwise provided for — uniform statewide, and reconfirmed by the schedule's amendment in SL 2026, ch 92, effective July 1, 2026 |
South Dakota's circuit courts sit in seven judicial circuits, and every clerk of courts is an officer of the single, statewide Unified Judicial System — which is why the statutory fee really is identical at all sixty-six counters. Two counties, Oglala Lakota and Todd, have no courthouses of their own; their court business runs through neighboring counties, and we route those filings to the correct courthouse as a matter of course.
We'll say it straight: the national guides miss the four provisions that decide outcomes here. Every failure below is live on a competitor page right now — or built into the rule they didn't read.
§ 15-6-28.3(C)(ii) requires the issued subpoena to advise the witness of the right to petition the South Dakota court to quash or modify. Not one national guide mentions it — their “mirror the foreign subpoena” workflow produces a document that fails the statute’s checklist on its face. We print the advisory on every subpoena we draft.
§ 15-6-45(c) is blunt: fees and mileage are tendered at service, the return must state the payment or the signed waiver, and “if such fees and mileage be not paid or waived, the witness shall not be obliged to obey.” An affidavit silent on the tender is defective on its face. Ours recites it, every time.
Most templates assume the federal-style 14-day objection window. South Dakota’s § 15-6-45(d) gives the recipient ten days — and a motion calendar built on the wrong number misses the fight entirely. We run South Dakota’s clock, not the template’s.
A current national guide says the subpoena issues “where the witness resides, works, or where documents or evidence are located” — language that appears nowhere in South Dakota’s text. The statute says the county where discovery is sought, and § 15-6-45(d) caps where a witness can be made to attend. We venue-check from the statute, not from a paste.
The same guides summarize the jurisdiction clause as “issuing, enforcing, or modifying” — and skip the part their readers most need: requesting the subpoena creates South Dakota jurisdiction to sanction the requesting attorney for SDRCP violations. We draft and serve so there is nothing to sanction — and your counsel can litigate any dispute without pro hac vice, a right the statute grants expressly.
A South Dakota resident may be required to attend only in the county where they reside, are employed, or transact business in person; a nonresident only in the county where served. Book a Sioux Falls deposition for a Rapid City witness and the subpoena collapses under § 15-6-45(d)(2). We verify attendance venue before anything is scheduled.
End-to-end handling of the most rewritten UIDDA in the country — drafted to the checklist, served to the letter, at the lowest court costs in America.
Conformed to the SDRCP first, the § 15-6-28.3(C)(ii) quash-rights advisory printed on the face, and the full counsel-and-party contact block — the three things the statute demands and templates skip.
The statutory issuance line under SDCL 16-2-29 — plus the $25 catch-all where the clerk opens a file — confirmed against the county's intake practice and itemized on your invoice.
Unified Judicial System clerks in every county — including correct routing for Oglala Lakota and Todd, the two counties whose court business runs through their neighbors.
Party notice served before any records witness, the ten-day objection window calendared correctly, and the unreasonable-and-oppressive standard briefed for your counsel if a fight starts.
Summons-manner personal service with the $20-and-mileage tender at the door, the signed waiver collected when declined, and the return reciting one or the other — as § 15-6-45(c) commands.
Issuance reported same-day, attendance venue verified, and a filing-ready affidavit of service (PDF) that recites the tender for your originating court.
Every discovery subpoena the act reaches — a document however denominated — drafted to the checklist and served with the tender.
Records and ESI with the party notice served first, the ten-day window calendared, and the advisory on the face — the full § 15-6-45(b) machine.
Testimony set where § 15-6-45(d)(2) allows — the resident's own county, the nonresident's county of service — with the $20 tender at the door.
Combined commands conformed to South Dakota's rules first, the foreign terms carried so long as they conform — the statute's inversion, drafted correctly.
Hospital systems, banks, ag lenders, and employers — noticed, served summons-style, and objection-tracked on South Dakota's ten-day clock.
Out-of-state counsel and the teams behind them — anyone who needs a South Dakota witness without learning the most rewritten UIDDA in the country.
Out-of-state litigators reaching South Dakota witnesses and custodians — the advisory drafted in, the tender recited, the clock run on ten days.
Records from the insurers, trust companies, and card-issuing banks clustered in Sioux Falls — the party-notice rule honored before any custodian is served.
Discovery from employers and institutions from the Black Hills to the Big Sioux — served summons-style with the fees in hand.
Subpoenas from any of South Dakota's nine federally recognized tribal courts — domesticated through the same clerk channel § 15-6-28.2 provides.
One vendor for the chain — venue check, checklist drafting, $2 filing, notice, tender-recited service, affidavit — with issuance reported same-day.
Agencies reselling South Dakota coverage — we run the clerk filings and § 15-6-45 service under your brand's timeline.
We file and serve everywhere in the state — Sioux Falls to the Black Hills, the river counties to the reservations.
That’s all 66 — served by clerks of one statewide Unified Judicial System sitting in seven judicial circuits, which is why the statutory fee is identical at every counter. Two counties — Oglala Lakota and Todd — have no courthouses of their own; their court business runs through neighboring counties, and we route those filings correctly as a matter of course. And yes, South Dakota has a Woonsocket too — Sanborn County’s seat — we serve there as well.
Straight answers — with the statute linked — on domesticating and serving an out-of-state or tribal-court subpoena in South Dakota under SDCL 15-6-28.1 through 15-6-28.6.
Send the originating state or tribal court, the South Dakota county where discovery will be conducted, and your subpoena PDF. We draft to the statute's checklist — advisory on the face — file with the clerk at the $2.00 statutory fee, run the party-notice rule on records subpoenas, serve summons-style with the $20 tender at the door, and return an affidavit that recites the payment — all 66 counties.
Served 123 LLC is a process service and litigation-support company, not a law firm, and does not provide legal advice. Clerk of courts filings and service are performed administratively at the direction of the client and its counsel. Court-cost figures are cited from SDCL 16-2-29 as amended through SL 2026, ch 92, and witness fees from SDCL 19-5-1; both are subject to legislative change, and county intake practice is confirmed with the clerk before every filing.
