Finding Court Rules

Court rules set out the procedures that govern how the court will operate.  Procedure rules include topics such as how and when to file documents, which court can appropriately hear certain cases, and what types of evidence can be presented.

Different rules apply in different types of court.  In addition, the rules for criminal cases are different than the rules for civil (non-criminal) cases.

Before you begin searching for court rules, you should figure out which court your case will be in and what type of case (civil or criminal) your case is.  For example, there are rules of civil procedure for Maryland's Circuit Courts and different rules of civil procedure for Maryland's District Courts. There is also a separate set of rules of criminal procedure that apply in both the Circuit and District Courts, but only in criminal cases.

If you are representing yourself Maryland, the most likely set of court rules that you will need are the procedure rules for civil cases in the Circuit Court and in the District Court.

This section also discusses how to find the rules for the state appeals courts, plus the rules for the federal courts that sit in Maryland ( the U.S. District Court and the U.S. Bankruptcy Court).

Locating the Rules

• Rule books in the library - The procedural rules of all the courts that sit in Maryland, including the federal courts, are published in the two paperback rules volumes of the Annotated Code of Maryland. (For more information on the Annotated Code of Maryland, see Searching for Maryland Statutes When You Don't Have a Citation.) Any library that subscribes to the Annotated Code of Maryland will also get the court rules. The rules volumes contain several different sets of court rules, which apply in different courts and in different types of cases.  The rules volumes also include their own indexes to the court rules - one index for rules of the state courts, and a separate index for each of the federal courts that sits in Maryland (the U.S. District Court and the U.S. Bankruptcy Court).
• There is also a free web database containing the unannotated text of rules from Maryland courts. To search this database, first click in the box to the left of “Maryland Rules” to select that database. Click the folder icon or heading (library, publication, or document) in the table of contents to expand or collapse that heading. Click a document heading to view the document text.

Source: Sara Kelley, law librarian with the University of Maryland School
of Law, created this section as a public service.  Updated by the Maryland State Law Library (MSLL).           

                                                                                                                                     Last Review Date 9/12/08 (PLL/M.A.J.)

About this website. The Maryland State Law Library, a court-related agency of the Maryland Judiciary, sponsors this site. The website was developed (1999-2007) as part of an access to justice initiative by the Maryland Legal Assistance Network (MLAN) in collaboration with a number of legal services providers serving low and moderate income Marylanders.  In the absence of file-specific attribution or copyright, the Maryland State Law Library may hold the copyright to parts of this website. You are free to copy the information for your own use or for other non-commercial purposes with the following language “Source: Maryland's People’s Law Library – www.peoples-law.org. © Maryland State Law Library, 2007.”

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