Marshall is a place with a name but no Census count. It has no city government, no Census population and no courthouse, and it isn't a Census-designated place. What it does have is a fixed point in the federal place-name database, a ZIP Code and a courthouse about 23 miles away. That's enough to plan service, as long as the person sending the papers fills in what the address alone can't say.
The facts below come from official records: the Census Bureau's files and geocoder, the USGS place-name database, Marin Superior Court's own pages and the Marin County Sheriff's civil page. We manage Marshall requests from Sacramento, which is about 82 miles from Marshall in a straight line.
Marshall on the record
| Record | What it shows |
|---|---|
| USGS GNIS | Populated place, feature 228136, on the Tomales map |
| Type of place | Unincorporated; not a Census-designated place |
| ZIP Code area | 94940: about 26.2 square miles of land and 4.7 of water |
| Census geography | Tract 1330, Northwest Marin county subdivision |
| School district | Shoreline Unified, per the Census Geocoder |
| Courthouse | Hall of Justice, San Rafael, about 22.7 miles |
| Sheriff's civil office | 1600 Los Gamos Drive, San Rafael, about 21.5 miles |
The distances are straight-line, from the GNIS point to the coordinates the court publishes and to the Census Geocoder's match for the Sheriff's address. Road miles are longer.
ZIP 94940: no city, no Census place
Of the 29 ZIP Code areas that touch Marin County in the Census Bureau's 2020 files, only two contain no city or Census-designated place at all: 94940 and 94950. In the Census Bureau's 2020 ZCTA to place relationship file, the row for 94940 lists no place at all. Every acre of its land, about 26.2 square miles, is outside any city or Census community, and the file credits it with about 4.7 square miles of water as well.
Two practical points follow. First, a 94940 address could be close to the GNIS point or several miles from it, and the ZIP Code won't tell a server which. Second, because there's no Census place, there's also no Census population, housing count or boundary to lean on. The street address and your notes carry the whole load.
Named places along the shore
GNIS lists several other populated places inside 94940, each confirmed by the Census Geocoder. By straight-line distance from Marshall's point:
- Marconi, about 1.4 miles
- Blakes Landing, about 2.7 miles
- Nicks Cove, about 3.1 miles
- Millerton, about 4.4 miles
Reynolds, Cypress Grove, Hamlet, McDonald and Ocean Roar also appear in GNIS within the same ZIP Code. Two nearby GNIS names, Lairds Landing and Sacramento Landing, fall in a different Census tract, 1322, so don't assume they share Marshall's ZIP Code; check the address on the papers. If the papers or your notes use one of these names, pass it on. It narrows the search.
About 23 miles to the courthouse
Marin Superior Court files every civil, family law, probate and small claims case at the Clerk's Office in Room 113 of the Hall of Justice, 3501 Civic Center Drive, San Rafael. The counter is open 8:00 a.m. to noon and 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. on weekdays, and new cases should be there before 3:30 p.m. For a Marshall party, that's a round trip of well over 40 straight-line miles for a counter filing, so the remote options are worth knowing:
- eFiling. Attorneys must e-file under Local Rule 1.51(B)(1). Self-represented parties may, and a document submitted at any hour of a court day counts as filed that day under Rule 1.51(B)(6).
- Mail and drop box. The civil page says self-represented litigants can file by postal mail or the drop box. The court's mailing address is P.O. Box 4988, San Rafael, CA 94913.
- Case information. The court's ePortal shows case details and hearing dates without a trip.
- Records by mail. Staff will research a case file for $15 per case, by check to Civil Research at the same P.O. box.
Our Marin County court filing service can take papers to Room 113 or e-file them, on the same request as the service.
Finding the right building
With no town grid to lean on, the instructions do most of the work at a Marshall address. Send:
- The street number and road, plus a cross road or a fixed landmark if you know one. A mailing address that isn't where the person sleeps won't do.
- Which building. If the parcel has more than one structure, say which one the person lives in.
- Access. A gate code, a locked chain, a shared driveway, dogs, and whether a car can turn around.
- The person. A recent photo, a description and the vehicle they drive.
- The schedule. When they're usually home, and any workplace, which may be miles away.
- The deadline. The hearing date, the response date or any other date the service has to beat.
Remote areas are subject to different timelines. A thin address can turn one attempt into three, while a good description can let the first attempt count.
Papers to serve in Marshall?
P.O. boxes and mailing addresses
The kind of address you have decides what a server can do with it.
Post office boxes. Substituted service under CCP § 415.20(b) can happen at a dwelling house, a usual place of abode or business, or a usual mailing address. The same sentence of the statute carves out a U.S. Postal Service post office box, twice. A P.O. box is never a place to leave a summons.
Private mailboxes. Section 415.20(c) treats a box at a commercial mail receiving agency, the kind a private mail store rents, on its own terms. Where that box is the only address anyone can reasonably find, the papers may go to the agency on the very first try, following the procedure in the Business and Professions Code.
Small claims. CCP § 116.340(a)(1) lets the clerk mail a small claims claim and order by a form of mail with a return receipt. The Marin Sheriff's page points to that route when a P.O. box is the only address a plaintiff has.
Working back from a deadline
Distance makes the calendar tighter, so it helps to count backward from the date that matters:
- A summons left with another adult at the home is followed by a first-class mailing, and that service isn't complete until the 10th day after the mailing (§ 415.20(b)). A response period runs from completion, not from the day of the visit.
- A small claims defendant who lives in Marin must be served at least 15 days before the hearing, and the proof of service filed at least five days before it (§ 116.340(b) and (c)). The Sheriff's page suggests allowing 25 days when substituted service is likely.
- A defendant who lives outside Marin gets 20 days in small claims instead of 15, and the Sheriff suggests 30 days for a substituted service.
Tell us the hearing date when you send the papers, not after the first attempt. A hearing three weeks out leaves room for a second or third try at a Marshall address; a hearing ten days out may not. General information, not legal advice.
Just over the county line
Marshall sits near the north end of Marin County. Tomales, about 6 miles away, and Dillon Beach, about 6.6, are still in Marin. Valley Ford, about 11.4 miles from Marshall's point, is a Census-designated place in Sonoma County. If a person has moved from Marshall into Sonoma County, the Marin case stays where it was filed, but the Marin Sheriff can't take the job, because its civil page asks for a Marin County service address. A private server can go to the new address on the same request.
Service by mail with acknowledgment
Some people will accept papers without a visit. CCP § 415.30 lets a plaintiff mail the summons and complaint, by first-class mail or airmail, with two copies of a notice and acknowledgment of receipt and a postage-paid return envelope. Service is deemed complete on the date the person signs the acknowledgment.
The method only works if the person signs and sends it back. The notice warns that failing to return it within 20 days may make them liable for the cost of serving them another way. If the acknowledgment doesn't come back, personal or substituted service at the Marshall address is the next step, and the waiting time is lost. For a defendant who wants to cooperate, mailing first can save a long drive. For one who doesn't, it can cost weeks. General information, not legal advice.
Sheriff or private server in West Marin
The Marin County Sheriff's Documentary Services / Civil Division serves process anywhere in the county. It asks for two copies of the papers for each person, a completed SER-001 with at least one Marin County address, and payment when the papers come in, by cash or check. Most service costs $50 under its fee schedule effective January 1, 2024. If it can't serve, it sends an Attempt Service Return listing each try by date and time. The Sheriff says it doesn't research addresses.
A private server can work from whatever you know, follow a person who has left the county and coordinate the filing too. Any adult who isn't a party may serve papers; our guide on who can serve papers in California covers the rules. From January 1, 2027, AB 747's change to CCP § 415.20(b)(2) means three good-faith attempts at personal delivery, on 3 different days and at 3 different times, show reasonable diligence before papers are left with another adult. Our AB 747 guide explains the change, and the proof of service guide shows what the server signs.
Starting a Marshall request
Upload up to 5 PDFs to the Service Request and put the directions in the notes. Name each party as the papers do, list every address you have, including a workplace, and give the deadline. For a business, our serving corporations page covers finding the agent for service of process. Get status updates by email, or reach us at 855-582-5776 or Service@ValproAttorneyServices.com, Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Places near Marshall
Inverness is about 5.8 miles from Marshall's GNIS point, Tomales about 6, Dillon Beach 6.6 and Point Reyes Station 7. Valley Ford, about 11.4 miles away, is across the line in Sonoma County. Every community we serve in the county is on our Marin County page.