Art. 2674.Attorney Appointed to Represent Unrepresented Defendant

Executory process still needs someone able to appear and respond, even when the defendant cannot fill that role personally. Article 2674 lists five situations where the court must appoint an attorney at law to represent an unrepresented defendant, so the proceeding can move forward without leaving the defendant's side of the case empty.

The first three situations track the succession and property-administration articles just before this one: an absentee defendant who cannot be reached; a debtor who has died with no succession representative yet appointed and whose heirs or legatees have not been sent into possession, meaning a court has not yet formally recognized their right to the succession's property; and a debtor whose property was under a legal representative's administration, but that representative has died, resigned, or been removed, with no successor yet qualified to take over.

The last two cover different gaps entirely: a defendant corporation or partnership on which process cannot be served for any reason, and a defendant who is a minor or a mental incompetent with no legal representative in place when the proceeding starts.

Article 2641 explains what follows the appointment: every demand, notice, and document that would go to the defendant instead goes to this court-appointed attorney, and the seizure and sale proceeds contradictorily against that attorney.