Court Rules Now Has 12,000+ Filing Rules From 27 State Courts

Before a filing goes in, someone has to check the judge's rules, and in a state trial court those rules are spread across several pages

The local rules say one thing, and the civil division page adds another. The assigned department often keeps its own PDF as well. Together those pages set page limits, exhibit tabs, courtesy copies and the format of proposed orders, and some ask you to call chambers first

Today Court Rules is opening a state-court beta across 27 major trial courts, from Los Angeles to Philadelphia and King County to Miami-Dade: 2,000+ active judges, 2,200+ source documents, and 12,000+ filing rules taken from the pages where the courts publish them

10,000+ legal professionals since February

Court Rules has reached 10,000+ litigators, paralegals, and legal-tech builders since February. They use it to find the court and the judge and to read the source before something gets filed

A litigator needs to know whether the motion is twenty pages or twenty-five. A paralegal needs the courtesy-copy address, the exhibit-tab rule, and whether the proposed order is a separate upload. Legal software needs the same answers in a format it can read, with the source attached

Where state courts publish their rules

In federal court the order is usually easy to follow, from the national rules to the district's local rules and then the judge's individual practices. State trial courts are less consistent

The rule you need may come from the state, the county, a division, a courthouse, a department, a calendar or the judge. It may be in a PDF, on an old web page or on a courtroom information sheet, and a document called "Helpful Hints" can contain a requirement that is not optional

Court Rules keeps those layers apart. Court-wide e-filing rules sit beside civil-division orders and a judge's courtesy-copy instructions, and each one stays separate. If the judge publishes nothing individually, the page says so and shows the court rules that still apply. Every instruction keeps its source and exact language

How much the courts differ

• Cook County alone has 404 active judges
• Miami-Dade has 240 tracked source documents across 150 judges
• Santa Clara publishes 235 documents for 72 judges, one of the deepest sets of judge rules in the beta
• St. Louis County is the newest court on the board, with 46 judges and 55 tracked documents
• Texas is represented four different ways because Harris, Bexar, Dallas, and Travis counties do not publish their procedures the same way

Why the state courts are still a beta

Court websites change without warning, and some courts publish much more than others. Santa Clara publishes several documents per judge, while Multnomah publishes six documents for 52 judges

Every rule links back to its source, and a missing document is shown as missing. Some courts and judges still need more work

Courts still to add

If your cases are in a court we do not cover yet, the beta does not help you

An answer should show the exact language, the source and the date we checked it, so you can put it on the filing checklist

Next we are adding more busy trial courts, finding the missing departments and judges in the courts already on the site, and checking for changes faster. If you build docketing, case-management, or legal AI software, the API gives your product the same answer and the same source

If your court is missing, send us the name