The Secrets of the Rules of the Court
Every court, at every level, from the smallest traffic court to the highest court in the land, has rules and regulations that determine everything from proper decorum (behavior) Any legal action that is undertaken will have to appear in some form of judicial hearing or meeting at some point during their legal action, and thus it is important that an attorney engaged in the proceedings, and his or her staff, become intimately familiar with the process of the particular court.
Court rules often carry with them a great deal of uniformity from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, even state to state, but there are also particulars that have to be recognized in each jurisdiction that will inevitably come into play during the proceedings. The rules also vary depending on the nature of the court. In many cases, these rules are outlined to ensure ethical conduct, and can contain provisos that prevent lawyers from behaving in a matter that does not benefit their client. Usually, the rules will outline notions of candor that the lawyer must display toward the court, which includes preventing a lawyer from making false claims to the court or withholding evidence that may pertain to the proceedings
It is the particularity of court rules that presents the predominant reason why lawyers have to bass a bar exam in a state within which they practice. This prevents arguments of ignorance from having any validity in an attorney or client’s conduct.
The price of not being familiar with the laws of a courtroom can have very high costs, which can involve contempt of court, and the disavowal of material presented the court if it is not administered in the proper way.
The onus to know these rules remains on the attorney and his or her staff, which means that any paralegal charges with learning court rules would be wise to learn them implicitly; in many respects, they can be as important as knowing the particulars of the case itself.
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