If a court bases personal jurisdiction over an out-of-state or foreign defendant on a long-arm statute, the court must carefully select a means of notifying the defendant to comply with the notice requirement of due process. Sometimes this is done by serving agents of the defendant located within the state. Because out-of-state defendants can't always be located easily, some state or local laws may allow for selication.

An example of this would be printing a notice of the lawsuit in a newspaper published where the defendant is believed to reside. Because the failure of a defendant to appear in court results in a default judgment against him, such measures must be sufficiently calculated to give actual notice to the defendant to satisfy due process.