Facebook has been used to serve legal documents, in a case where the defendants failed to turn up to court.

In one of the first such cases in Australia and potentially the world, a Canberra court has used Facebook to serve legal documents in a case where the defendants couldn't be found any other way.

The ACT Supreme Court ordered that a judgement be served to defendants via the social networking site, after they failed to appear in to court.

Young Canberra lawyer Mark McCormack suggested a novel way to contact them.

"Both myself and my colleague Jason Oliver have Facebook accounts, so we thought we could access that and see if we could find them," he said.

The co-defendants were listed as being friends with one another and their Facebook profiles displayed their birth dates, which was enough to satisfy the court that the right people would receive the documents.

Courts have previously allowed judgements to be delivered by email and footballer Sonny Bill Williams was recently served via text message.

A Victorian law firm says it has also used Facebook to deliver a legal notice.

The Victorian County Court delivered a six-figure amount against the defendant in that case, after the Facebook communication was successfully sent through.

Lawyers say the willingness of the courts to use the new technology gives them more opportunities to perform their work in difficult circumstances.