To respond to a subpoena, confirm it’s valid, calendar the deadline, preserve any records it covers, and then choose one of three paths before the clock runs out: produce what’s requested, serve written objections on the issuing attorney, or file a motion to quash with the court. Under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, you have until the compliance date stated in the subpoena or 14 days after service, whichever comes first.1Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 45 – Subpoena Miss that window and you can lose the right to object at all. Ignore the subpoena entirely and a court can hold you in contempt, impose fines, or order detention until you comply.
Your First Moves After Service
The first few days matter more than anything that follows. Start here:
- Verify the document is real. A valid subpoena identifies the issuing court, names the case, and is signed by a clerk or an attorney authorized to issue it. If any of those basics are missing, it may not be enforceable.
- Calendar the response deadline. Under federal rules, you must respond or object by the earlier of the compliance date or 14 days after service.1Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 45 – Subpoena
- Issue a litigation hold. Stop any routine destruction or deletion of information that could be relevant. Notify everyone who handles the records, suspend auto-delete policies on email, and preserve backups. Destroying evidence after you know it’s relevant can trigger sanctions even if the subpoena is later narrowed.
- Get counsel involved. An attorney can tell you whether you’re a bystander witness or have a personal stake, flag privileged material, and identify confidentiality agreements that may require notice to third parties before you hand anything over.
Confirm Service Was Proper
A federal subpoena must be delivered by someone who is at least 18 and not a party to the case. If it commands your attendance at a deposition, hearing, or trial, the server must also tender fees for one day’s attendance and the mileage allowed by law.2Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 45 – Subpoena – Section: Service Most federal courts interpret “delivering a copy” as requiring personal, in-hand delivery, though a few have allowed overnight courier for document-only subpoenas.
If the subpoena was left with a receptionist, mailed without your knowledge, or served by a party to the lawsuit, you may have grounds to challenge service. Improper service doesn’t automatically release you from the obligation, but it can support a motion to quash.
Check the Geographic Limits
A subpoena can only require you to appear within 100 miles of where you live, work, or regularly do business in person.3Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 45 – Subpoena – Section: Place of Compliance If you’re a party or a party’s officer, the range extends to anywhere within the state where you reside or work. A deposition command 300 miles from home, with no connection to the issuing district, exceeds those limits and a court must quash or modify it.
Know the Witness Fees You’re Owed
Federal law entitles a subpoenaed witness to an attendance fee of $40 per day, plus mileage reimbursement at the government rate if you drive your own vehicle.4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 USC 1821 – Per Diem and Mileage Generally For 2026, the IRS standard mileage rate is 72.5 cents per mile.5Internal Revenue Service. IRS Sets 2026 Business Standard Mileage Rate at 72.5 Cents Per Mile If the subpoena commands your attendance, these fees must be tendered at the time of service. One exception: the government doesn’t have to tender fees when it issues the subpoena itself. Tolls, parking, and taxicab fares between lodging and transit terminals are also reimbursable.
The Three Ways to Respond
Federal Rule 45 allows a subpoena to command three things: attendance to testify, production of documents or electronically stored information, or inspection of premises. A single subpoena can combine them. The type matters because it narrows your response options.1Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 45 – Subpoena
Written objections, the faster and simpler response, are only available when the subpoena demands documents, tangible items, or premises inspection. If the subpoena commands your appearance for testimony, your only ways to resist are a motion to quash or a motion for a protective order. For a subpoena that demands both testimony and documents, you can object in writing to the document requests but still need a court motion to avoid showing up.
When a subpoena asks only for documents, you don’t have to appear in person. You produce the records, serve objections, or do both from your office.
Producing Documents and Electronic Files
If you’re going to comply, how you organize and deliver the records matters almost as much as what you produce.
Physical Records
You have two options for physical documents. Produce them the way they’re already organized in your files, or reorganize and label them to match the categories in the subpoena.6Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 45 – Subpoena – Section: Duties in Responding to a Subpoena Most practitioners also Bates stamp every page with sequential numbers so both sides can reference specific documents during depositions or at trial.
Electronically Stored Information
When the subpoena doesn’t specify a format, you must produce electronic files either in the form you ordinarily maintain them or in another reasonably usable form.6Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 45 – Subpoena – Section: Duties in Responding to a Subpoena In practice, “reasonably usable” usually means native file formats, which preserve embedded metadata like creation dates, edit history, and author information. You aren’t required to produce the same electronic information in more than one format, so if you deliver the native file, you don’t owe a PDF copy as well.
Native files carry a risk worth planning for: metadata such as track-changes history, internal comments, and prior authors travels with the file and can expose confidential information or privileged material. Review and scrub before you send, or negotiate a cleaned format with the requesting party that still qualifies as reasonably usable.
You also don’t have to pull data from sources that are genuinely not reasonably accessible because of cost or technical difficulty, such as backup tapes in obsolete formats or decommissioned databases. If the requesting party pushes back, you’ll need to show the burden, and a court can still order production on a showing of good cause.6Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 45 – Subpoena – Section: Duties in Responding to a Subpoena
Withholding Privileged Material
You can withhold documents protected by a recognized privilege. Attorney-client communications and work product prepared in anticipation of litigation are the most common. But you can’t simply hold them back without saying so. Federal rules require you to identify what you’re withholding and why, in enough detail that the other side can evaluate the claim.
The standard tool is a privilege log, a document-by-document index of everything withheld. For each entry, include the date, author, recipients, a general description of the document’s nature without giving away the substance, and the specific privilege asserted. Vague, boilerplate entries invite motions to compel and judicial skepticism.
Inadvertent disclosure is a real risk under deadline pressure. Federal Rule of Evidence 502(b) protects against waiver if you took reasonable steps to prevent the disclosure and acted promptly to fix it once discovered. “Reasonable steps” means an actual review process, not a vague intention to check.
Serving Written Objections
You don’t have to comply with every demand just because a subpoena arrived. If the requests are unreasonable, overbroad, or seek protected information, you can serve written objections on the attorney or party named in the subpoena. Once you do, the obligation to produce is suspended. The requesting party must go to court and get an order compelling production before you owe anything further.7Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 45 – Subpoena – Section: Protecting a Person Subject to a Subpoena
The objection must land before the earlier of the compliance date or 14 days after service.7Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 45 – Subpoena – Section: Protecting a Person Subject to a Subpoena This is a hard deadline. If the subpoena gives you only seven days to produce, you must object within those seven days, not the full 14.
Grounds That Carry Weight
Specific objections hold up; boilerplate ones don’t. The strongest arguments fall into a few categories:
- Undue burden. The time and expense of gathering, reviewing, and producing the materials is disproportionate to the needs of the case. The argument carries extra weight when you’re a non-party. Back it up with a declaration estimating the hours, personnel, and costs involved.
- Privilege. The subpoena seeks attorney-client communications, work product, or other protected material. Pair this objection with a privilege log.
- Lack of relevance. The requested documents have no connection to the claims or defenses in the underlying case.
- Overbreadth. The requests sweep in far more than what’s reasonably needed, such as “all documents related to” a topic spanning a decade when the dispute covers a single transaction.
Partial Compliance Is Allowed
Objecting isn’t all-or-nothing. You can produce non-objectionable documents while withholding the contested ones. This is usually the smarter play: it shows good faith, narrows the dispute, and puts you in a better position if the requesting party later moves to compel.
Filing a Motion to Quash or Modify
Written objections and motions to quash do different work. An objection shifts the burden to the requesting party to seek a court order. A motion to quash goes straight to the court and asks a judge to cancel or narrow the subpoena before the compliance date. You’ll typically file a motion to quash when the subpoena has a fundamental defect, such as improper service, a geographic-limit violation, or a demand for clearly privileged material, rather than an ordinary scope dispute.
File the motion in the court for the district where compliance is required, which may not be the same court where the lawsuit is pending.7Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 45 – Subpoena – Section: Protecting a Person Subject to a Subpoena File before the compliance date to be timely.
Grounds the Court Must Quash
A court must quash or modify a subpoena that:
- Doesn’t allow a reasonable time to comply
- Requires travel beyond the 100-mile limits
- Demands privileged or protected material with no applicable exception or waiver
- Subjects the recipient to undue burden
Prove any one of these and the court has no discretion.7Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 45 – Subpoena – Section: Protecting a Person Subject to a Subpoena
Grounds the Court May Quash
A court may also quash or modify a subpoena that demands trade secrets, confidential research or commercial information, or an unretained expert’s opinions not tied to specific events in the dispute.7Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 45 – Subpoena – Section: Protecting a Person Subject to a Subpoena If you hold trade secrets the subpoena targets, raise this early. Once the information is out, no court order can put it back.
Cost Recovery If You’re a Non-Party
If you have no stake in the lawsuit and a subpoena lands on your desk demanding extensive production, the full financial burden shouldn’t fall on you. Any court order compelling a non-party to produce must protect that person from significant expense.7Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 45 – Subpoena – Section: Protecting a Person Subject to a Subpoena
In practice, the party that issued the subpoena may be required to cover compliance costs, including copying, data collection, outside vendor fees, and in some cases attorney time spent reviewing documents for privilege. Courts weigh whether you have any stake in the outcome, who is better positioned to absorb the expense, how invasive the request is, and whether the costs are reasonable relative to what’s being asked. If compliance will run into tens of thousands of dollars for a case you have nothing to do with, raise the cost issue in your written objections and ask the court to condition any production on cost-shifting.
Serving Your Response and Keeping Proof
Your response, whether it’s a document production, a privilege log, written objections, or some combination, must reach the attorney or party identified in the subpoena before the deadline. Permitted methods include personal delivery, electronic service, and mail.
Create a record of service. Federal Rule 45 contemplates proof through a certified statement showing the date, manner of service, and names of the persons served.2Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 45 – Subpoena – Section: Service A certificate of service attached to your response, or a courier’s delivery confirmation, protects you against any later claim that you didn’t respond on time.
What Happens If You Don’t Respond
Ignoring a subpoena, or responding half-heartedly, can lead the court for the district where compliance is required to hold you in contempt. Rule 45(g) is blunt: anyone properly served who fails without adequate excuse to obey the subpoena or a related court order faces contempt proceedings.1Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 45 – Subpoena Contempt can mean monetary sanctions and, in extreme cases, imprisonment until you comply.
“Without adequate excuse” does real work. If you served timely objections or filed a motion to quash and the court hasn’t ruled, you have an adequate excuse. If you ignored the subpoena because it seemed inconvenient, you don’t. Destroying documents after service is worse still. Courts treat spoliation as a separate sanctionable offense that can bring adverse inference instructions telling the jury to assume the destroyed evidence was harmful to you, additional fines, or both. Respond in writing by the deadline, even when the response is entirely objections.