What is Civil Procedure?
Civil procedure
is the body of law that sets out the process that courts will follow
when hearing cases of a civil nature (a "civil action", as opposed to a
criminal action). These rules govern how a lawsuit or case may be
commenced, what kind of service of process is required, the types of
pleadings or statements of case, motions or applications, and orders
allowed in civil cases, the timing and manner of depositions and
discovery or disclosure, the conduct of trials, the process for
judgment, various available remedies, and how the courts and clerks must
function.
The United States federal court system adopted standardized Federal
Rules of Civil Procedure on September 16, 1938, before which time there
were varying rules that governed different types of civil cases such as
cases at law or in equity or in admiralty. (These differences grew from
the history of "law" and "equity" as separate court systems in English
law.) There are exceptions to the types of cases that the Federal Rules
now control but they are few in number and somewhat esoteric (e.g.,
"prize proceedings in admiralty"). Most states have also adopted the
Federal Rules (with various minor modifications) to govern procedures in
their state court systems.
California is the odd exception in that its homegrown civil procedure
system is enshrined in statutory law (the Code of Civil Procedure), not
in rules promulgated by the state supreme court or the state bar
association.
The civil courts of England and Wales adopted an overwhelmingly unified
body of rules as a result of the Woolf Reforms on 26 April 1999. These
are collectively known as the Civil Procedure Rules 1998 and in all but
some very confined areas replaced the older Rules of the Supreme Court
(applicable to the High Court of Justice) and the County Court Rules.
In Canada the rules of civil procedure are administered by the provinces
and thus each province has its own set of rules. Most provinces base
their civil procedure rules on the mixture of English and American rules
adapted to the needs of the province.
Alternative dispute resolution proceedings and administrative law
proceedings both tend to have relatively simple rules of procedure, in
comparison to the highly formalized procedures seen in the federal and
state courts.
Civil procedure. (2007, March 21). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 21:15, March 26, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Civil_procedure&oldid=116773731
FederalRulesOfCivilProcedure.info is a site where you can find the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure as of 2006, incorporating all changes made to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure on December 1, 2006.
We recommend visiting CivilProcedure.info for additional information. CivilProcedure.info is a site where you can find the Rules of Civil Procedure for all fifty states, plus Washington DC, Guam, and Puerto Rico. Though the site is geared toward Rules of Civil Procedure pertaining primarily to process serving, they offer links to official state, government, and court websites to view the full text of the Rules of Civil Procedure there.
If you need a process server, repo company, or private investigator, use one of the links below:
search for servers - Process Servers, Process Service Directory
legalprocessservers.net - A Process Server Directory
quick repo - A Repo Company Directory
search for pis - A Private Investigator / Private Investigation Directory