One main reason why people hire a professional service is that the State law requires them to do so. However, there are other motivations behind this move. For one, if you work from home and would like to keep your address private, hiring a professional service will work in your favor. You would maintain a professional veil and would not have your home address listed in public records. Secondly, there is the issue of working hours. If you choose to represent yourself, you will have to be available during the business working hours. That means that even if you want to take a vacation or handle an urgent matter, you have to have someone left behind to be available in case the authorities wish to serve you with papers. Additionally, many business people like enjoying some privacy. A good example would be where you had a legal tussle, and the authorities came to serve you with court papers. In front of your employees and customers, this will not be a very good look. It thus suffices that you might want to keep some of these matters private and away from the public eye. One way to achieve this will be by having an agency process your papers in secret and serve them to you online. Even so, you always have the option to represent your California LLC if you want to save on costs, are okay with your address being public, and do not mind the hassle of being available.