Gilroy sits at the south end of Santa Clara County, close to the San Benito and Santa Cruz county lines. It had 59,520 people at the 2020 Census and an estimated 60,764 on July 1, 2025. We serve summonses, small claims, subpoenas, family law papers and eviction documents on people and businesses in town and on the farms, ranches and hillside homes outside it.
Valpro Attorney Services has one office, in Sacramento, about 111 miles from Gilroy in a straight line. You don't come to us. Upload the papers, describe the person and the property, and get status updates by email.
South County service, San Jose filing
Gilroy sits at the far end of a county whose civil courthouses are all in downtown San Jose. From central Gilroy, Downtown Superior Court at 191 North First Street is about 28.5 miles away in a straight line. That's the building where Gilroy cases are filed:
| Gilroy matter | Where it goes | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Civil, limited or unlimited | Downtown Superior Court, San Jose | Local Civil Rule 1.C |
| Eviction (unlawful detainer) | Downtown Superior Court, San Jose | Local Civil Rule 13.C |
| Small claims, filing and hearing | Downtown Superior Court, San Jose | Local Civil Rule 19.A and 19.C(2) |
| Probate | Downtown Superior Court, San Jose | Courthouse list |
| Family law and domestic violence restraining orders | Family Court Clerk's Office, 201 N. First St., San Jose | Local Family Rule 1.E |
| Traffic and criminal | South County Morgan Hill Courthouse | Courthouse list |
Clerk's offices in San Jose take filings Monday through Thursday, 8:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., and Friday, 8:30 a.m. to noon. For a self-represented Gilroy plaintiff, a counter filing can mean most of a morning on the road. Attorneys in civil, family and probate cases must e-file under the court's rules, which removes the drive for them.
If you'd rather not make the trip, we can do the filing. See our Santa Clara County court filing page for how it works.
What the Morgan Hill courthouse handles
The South County Morgan Hill Courthouse is the county's only courthouse south of San Jose, about 9 miles from central Gilroy. The court lists it for criminal and traffic cases, in Departments 105 to 110. It has a parking lot next to the building and an outside drop box open 24 hours a day.
People in Gilroy often assume it's their local court for everything. It isn't. A civil complaint, an eviction or a small claims form left there is in the wrong building. Use it for a traffic matter or a criminal case, and send everything else to San Jose. Like every courthouse in the county, its mailing address is 191 North First Street, San Jose, CA 95113.
Court facts checked October 2026 at santaclara.courts.ca.gov.
One ZIP Code, mostly outside the city
Gilroy has a single Census ZIP Code area, 95020, and most of it isn't Gilroy. The 2020 Census relationship file shows:
- about 152 square miles of land in 95020 overall
- about 16.5 square miles of that inside Gilroy's city limits, roughly 11 percent
- about 2 square miles inside the San Martin Census-designated place
- about 133 square miles, roughly 88 percent, outside any city or Census-designated place
So a 95020 address that says Gilroy may be a home in town, a farm on a county road, or a house in the hills miles from the nearest neighbor. Service rules don't change with the address, and the case still goes to San Jose. The work does. Census ZIP Code areas approximate postal ZIP Codes.
Outlying Gilroy addresses: what to send
For rural addresses around Gilroy, remote areas are subject to different timelines. A server may need extra time to find the right gate, reach a house set back from the road or come back when someone's actually there. These details shorten that:
- The full address and a map pin. Rural route numbers and long private roads are hard to find from the street address alone. A cross street or GPS point helps.
- Gate and access notes. Is there a locked gate, a call box, dogs, a shared driveway? Say so.
- Who lives there. Name every adult on the property if you know them, and which house is theirs if there's more than one.
- Work patterns. Farm and ranch work often starts early. Tell us when people come and go.
- A second location. A workplace in town, a business, or a relative's house.
Put all of it in the Letter of Instruction on your Service Request. If a Rush deadline depends on an outlying address, call 855-582-5776 first so we can talk through what's realistic.
Papers to serve in Gilroy?
County lines south and west of Gilroy
Gilroy is close to two other counties. Hollister and San Juan Bautista are in San Benito County, about 15 and 12 miles away. Watsonville, about 12 miles west, is in Santa Cruz County.
People cross those lines for work every day, and that affects service in two ways:
- Service goes where the person is. We can serve a Watsonville or Hollister resident on a case filed in San Jose, and a Gilroy resident on a case filed in Hollister or Santa Cruz.
- Filing goes where the case is. A case already filed in San Benito or Santa Cruz County stays with that county's court. A Gilroy address doesn't move it to San Jose.
If you need a filing in one county and service in another, put both on one request and spell out each step. We also serve Hollister, Watsonville and San Juan Bautista, on the other side of each line.
Small claims from Gilroy
Gilroy residents can't file or hold a small claims hearing in South County. Rule 19.A sends every small claims action to Downtown Superior Court, and Rule 19.C(2) says the clerk schedules all hearings there. The court's page sets the claim limit at $12,500 for an individual.
Two more local rules to know. Rule 19.D(1) requires the plaintiff to serve the Notice to Small Claims Litigants (form SC-8006) with the claim. Rule 19.D(3) lets a plaintiff who couldn't serve in time ask the clerk for a later hearing, at least one court day before the date set.
The Small Claims Advisor answers questions by phone at (408) 882-2929 on Tuesdays from 2 to 4 p.m., or by web form, and its topics include how to serve the other party.
Three attempts on three days in South County
From January 1, 2027, AB 747 says the diligence needed before substituted service is shown by good-faith attempts at personal delivery on at least 3 occasions, on 3 different days at 3 different times. Every attempt also needs a photo stamped with the date, time and GPS location.
On a rural Gilroy property, that rule adds real time. Three separate trips to an outlying address can't be squeezed into one afternoon. Give us any second address you have, so the attempts can be split between the home and a workplace. Our AB 747 guide covers the full set of changes, and proof of service in California covers the form that comes back to you. This is general information, not legal advice.
Gilroy companies and agents
For a corporation or LLC, find its agent for service of process on the Secretary of State's bizfile Online and give us that name and address. A Gilroy retailer, grower or contractor may list an owner at a local address, or a registered agent firm somewhere else. Either way we serve the agent named. Read serving corporations in California for officers, dissolved companies and court-ordered alternatives.
When nobody's at the Gilroy address
If attempts show the person moved, ask about skip tracing. We research a current address, report it, and with your OK, send the papers back out. For records from an earlier Santa Clara County case, use document retrieval.
Near Gilroy
Straight-line distances from central Gilroy:
- San Martin (5.3 miles) and Morgan Hill (9.3)
- Coyote (16.9), on the way to San Jose
- Hollister (14.7) and San Juan Bautista (11.5) in San Benito County
- Watsonville (11.8) in Santa Cruz County
The rest of the county is on our Santa Clara County page.
We make no guarantees for service.