Inglewood is a courthouse city. The building at 1 Regent Street hears evictions, small claims and restraining orders for Inglewood and for neighbors such as Lennox and Hawthorne. Family law is the exception: an Inglewood divorce or custody case is filed in Torrance.
We serve restraining orders, eviction notices and summonses, family law petitions, subpoenas and small claims at Inglewood homes, apartment buildings and businesses. We also file with the court. All of it is coordinated from Sacramento. Start with a Service Request and attach the papers as PDFs.
What stays at 1 Regent Street
We ran the Los Angeles Superior Court's filing court locator for Inglewood ZIP Codes 90301, 90302, 90303 and 90305 on October 28, 2026. All four gave the same answer. Three case types belong to the Inglewood Courthouse alone:
- Restraining orders
- Unlawful detainer (evictions)
- Small claims
A fourth, unlimited civil over $35,000, lists the Inglewood Courthouse alongside the Torrance Courthouse. The locator doesn't pick between the two, so ask the Civil Clerk's Office which one fits your case before you file.
The Inglewood directory lists Civil, Criminal, Small Claims, Traffic and Unlawful Detainer as its divisions. The Civil Clerk's Office is on the 2nd floor in Room 202 and answers at (310) 419-1396 or (310) 419-1397. Paid public parking is in the east garage.
Family cases are filed in Torrance
Inglewood has no family law division, and the locator sends Inglewood family law to the Torrance Courthouse at 825 Maple Ave. That's 8.7 miles from Inglewood in a straight line, measured between the two cities' Census center points.
So the petition, the summons and every later family law filing for an Inglewood couple go to Torrance. The court's directory places the Torrance Family Law Facilitator Office on the 3rd floor, Room 310, and Family Court Services mediation in Room 330.
Serving the papers is a separate question from where they're filed. The other party gets served wherever they can be found: an Inglewood apartment, a job in El Segundo, a relative's place in Hawthorne. Proof of a family law summons usually goes on form FL-115, and our proof of service guide shows the other forms.
Restraining orders need a hand delivery
Restraining order papers can't be left at the door or dropped in the mail. The Judicial Council's proof forms set the rules:
- DV-200 (domestic violence) says the server must be 18 or older and not a person named in items 1 or 8 of the DV-100 request. It also says the papers must be given to the restrained party and "cannot" be sent by mail.
- CH-200 (civil harassment) has the same age rule and excludes anyone listed in items 1 or 3 of the request.
- CH-200-INFO explains why it matters: if a restraining order is in place, police can't arrest the restrained person for violating it until they've been served with it.
At 1 Regent Street, restraining order requests go to the same 2nd-floor counter as civil filings, Room 202, and the directory lists (310) 419-1397 for it.
That last point is why timing matters on these requests. If the hearing is close, choose Rush, give us a recent photo, and list every place the person is likely to be: home, work, a gym, a relative's address. Our post on who can serve court papers in California explains why restraining orders often carry stricter personal-service rules than an ordinary summons.
Lennox, Hawthorne and ZIP 90304
Lennox sits 1.5 miles from Inglewood's center and isn't part of the city. It's a Census-designated place, which means it's unincorporated county territory with its own Census name. The Census Bureau matches ZIP Code 90304 to Lennox, but the court's locator accepts 90304 under both "Inglewood" and "Lennox." Both entries returned the routing above.
Local Rule 2.3 explains the method behind those results. For small claims, limited collection and limited eviction cases, the court first identifies the city or community that sets venue, then the ZIP Code the Postal Service assigns to that spot, then the courthouse its appendix tables give for the pair. Lennox and Inglewood can share a ZIP Code and still be looked up as two separate communities.
Hawthorne, 2.9 miles away, came back identical too. So a Lennox tenant, a Hawthorne small claims defendant and an Inglewood landlord all start at 1 Regent Street, with family law in Torrance.
The locator also returned the Inglewood routing for 90306 and 90308. Neither is a Census ZIP Code area in our data, so an address using one may be a post office box. Substituted service can't be completed at a U.S. Postal Service post office box (CCP § 415.20). If that's all you have, ask us about locating a street or work address first.
Three nearby ZIP Codes, 90043, 90045 and 90056, gave no result when paired with "Inglewood." If an address uses one of them, the locator needs a different community name; run it again under the name the post office uses.
Papers to serve in Inglewood?
Two courthouses on Regent Street
Across the street from the main building, the Inglewood Juvenile Courthouse at 110 Regent Street hears juvenile justice cases. The court's directory describes an overpass crosswalk linking it to the adult courthouse, and paid public parking across the street. Local Rule 2.2 lists it among the Central District's outlying juvenile courthouses, even though it stands in Inglewood. When a notice gives a Regent Street address, check the number: 1 Regent and 110 Regent are different buildings with different clerks.
Inglewood's district and the injury rule
Local Rule 2.2 puts Inglewood in the Southwest District, along with the Torrance Courthouse and the Torrance Annex at 3221 Torrance Boulevard. That pairing is why the locator names both Inglewood and Torrance for unlimited civil.
Injury lawsuits get less choice. Local Rule 2.3 requires an unlimited personal injury case to be filed in the district where the incident arose, whatever the parties' addresses. A collision on an Inglewood street belongs in the Southwest District even if neither driver lives in the city.
The Airport Courthouse on South La Cienega Boulevard, near LAX, is easy to mistake for a local option. Its directory entry lists criminal cases only, and Local Rule 2.2 assigns it to the West District. Civil, family and eviction papers from Inglewood aren't filed there.
Smaller money cases leave Inglewood
Limited civil cases, $35,000 or less, are split by subject:
| Limited civil case | Where the locator sends it | Straight-line distance from Inglewood |
|---|---|---|
| Collection | Norwalk Courthouse, 12720 Norwalk Blvd. | 15.3 miles |
| Anything else | Stanley Mosk Courthouse, 111 North Hill Street | downtown Los Angeles |
Probate goes to Stanley Mosk as well. The court's civil e-filing FAQ says litigants represented by attorneys in civil cases must e-file unless they have a court order for exemption, which takes the drive out of it. We file at the counter or electronically and can move straight to service once the summons issues. Our Los Angeles County court filing page lists what we need.
Small claims timing for Inglewood defendants
Small claims service deadlines count backward from the trial date. Form SC-104B gives the numbers: personal service at least 15 days before trial, or 20 days if the defendant is outside the county. For substituted service, the count is 25 days, or 30 outside the county, starting from the date the papers were mailed.
For a claim filed at 1 Regent Street against someone in Inglewood, Lennox or Hawthorne, the in-county numbers apply. Give us the trial date when you submit, so we know the last day service still counts.
Workplaces and businesses in Inglewood
If the person can't be found at home, a workplace often works. After reasonable diligence, CCP § 415.20 lets the papers be left with the person apparently in charge of the office or place of business, followed by a mailed copy. It's complete on the 10th day after mailing.
From January 1, 2027, that path gets stricter. Under AB 747, the diligence needed before substituted service is shown by good-faith attempts at personal delivery on at least three occasions, on three different days at three different times. Each attempt also needs a photo with a date, time and GPS stamp, and at a business the photo shows the door of the specific office served. Our AB 747 guide explains every change.
When the defendant is the business itself, look it up on bizfile Online and send us the agent for service of process exactly as listed. CCP § 416.10 lets certain officers accept if the agent can't be found. If the agent is a commercial registered agent, our guides to CT Corporation and CSC Lawyers Incorporating Service cover how those companies accept papers. The full rules are on our serving corporations page.
After you submit
The updates come to you by email. If the person has moved, skip tracing looks for a current address, and we wait for your approval before the next attempt. The signed proof comes back to you for filing. We make no guarantees for service.
Culver City, Lawndale, Gardena and El Segundo are each within six miles of Inglewood, and we serve all four. Every other community is listed on our Los Angeles County page.