Changelog
Recent updates and improvements to Court Rules Network.
v2.69.0
September 9, 2026
- Maryland is complete — the fourteen remaining Titles of the Maryland Rules, 841 rules, taking Maryland to all 21 Titles and 1,524 rules. Maryland is one of the few states to put its whole body of court rules in a single numbered compilation, so a Maryland rule cites the same way whatever it governs: Rule 1-101 is the map of the entire thing, saying which Title reaches which court — Title 1 all matters in all Maryland courts except the orphans’ courts, Title 2 civil matters in the circuit courts, Title 3 the District Court, and so on. The largest of the new Titles is Title 18, Judges and Judicial Appointees at 132 rules, which carries the Maryland Code of Judicial Conduct — based, Rule 18-100.1 says, in large part on the ABA’s 2007 Model Code — a parallel Code of Conduct for Judicial Appointees, the Judicial Ethics Committee, and the disability and discipline procedure before the Commission on Judicial Disabilities. Title 16, Court Administration (88 rules) includes Rule 16-308, which establishes the Business and Technology Case Management Program — Maryland’s specialized business docket, with its own program judges and ADR track — along with the rules on recording proceedings, cameras in the courtroom, and public access to judicial records. Also new: Title 6, the 97 rules governing practice in the orphans’ courts and before the registers of wills, a probate forum most states do not have; Title 11, Juvenile Causes (85 rules), largely rewritten effective January 1, 2022; Title 15, seventeen distinct proceedings in 77 rules from habeas corpus and contempt through coram nobis and assisted outpatient treatment; Title 10 on guardians and fiduciaries; Title 9 on family law actions; Title 14, whose 22-rule chapter on foreclosure of lien instruments is the Maryland residential foreclosure procedure; Title 12 on property actions; Title 13 on receivers and assignees; Title 17 on alternative dispute resolution; Title 20, the MDEC statewide e-filing rules; and Title 21, the newest Title, on when a proceeding may be held remotely
v2.68.0
September 8, 2026
- Massachusetts is complete — ten new rule sets and 238 rules from five Trial Court departments, taking Massachusetts to nineteen sets. The Trial Court’s departments each promulgate their own rules alongside the statewide rules the Supreme Judicial Court makes, and these are the ones a litigant meets in the courtroom. Chief among them are the Superior Court Rules, 61 rules in five parts, which carry the single most surprising mechanic in Massachusetts civil practice: under Rule 9A a movant serves the motion, waits for the opposition, and files the whole exchange together as one “Rule 9A Package” — nothing reaches a judge until the exchange is complete, and the movant then has 10 days from service of the opposition to file the package or withdraw the motion. Rule 9A(a)(5) governs the papers down to paper size and 12-point double-spaced type; Rule 9C requires counsel to confer before filing any dispositive or discovery motion and to certify that they did; and Rule 20 lets any case ask for individual case management or tracking. Also new: the Supplemental Rules of the Probate and Family Court (54 rules, most carrying the court’s Reporter’s notes), the District/Municipal Courts Rules for Appellate Division Appeal (30 rules on appeals of questions of law under G.L. c. 231), the Supplemental Rules of Civil Procedure and Rules of Criminal Procedure for the District Court and Boston Municipal Court, the Rules for Probation Violation Proceedings, the Special Rules of the District Court, the Land Court Rules, and two Juvenile Court sets — the Rules for the Care and Protection of Children and the Rules for First Offense Determinations, the latter adopted in 2022 to implement Commonwealth v. Wallace W., 482 Mass. 789 (2019). Each department’s standing orders and administrative directives are a separate body and are not included
v2.67.0
September 8, 2026
- Eight new Northern Mariana Islands rule sets — 111 rules, taking the CNMI from seven sets to fifteen. The Commonwealth publishes its rules as a numbered R-series rather than one compilation, and these are the subject-matter sets a litigant is most likely to need. The Rules for In Forma Pauperis set out an unusually concrete fee-waiver test: Rule 6 requires the Superior Court to grant the waiver where the applicant or a household member receives a means-tested benefit — NAP, SSI, Section 8 housing, LIHEAP, MLSC representation or PSS free school lunch — or where total gross household income is at or below 125% of the U.S. poverty standard for Hawaii, the mainland figure being inapplicable to the islands; benefits from those same programs do not count as income. The Rules for Electronic Filing and Service, effective December 11, 2021, govern e-filing in all CNMI courts and make registration mandatory for attorneys under Rule 4 — including attorneys admitted pro hac vice, attorneys representing themselves, court-approved mediators and evaluators, and self-represented individuals — absent a good-cause exemption; the rules are deliberately platform-agnostic, referring throughout to an “E-system” designated by the Supreme Court. Also new: the Rules of Alternative Dispute Resolution (32 rules, the largest of the eight), the Rules Governing Procedure for Traffic and Other Infractions, whose Rule 9 designates the Superior Court clerks as traffic clerks and limits their authority to payable violations, the Rules of Guardianship Procedure, the Rules of Procedure for Administrative Appeals, the Rules of Electronic Recordation, and the Rules for Continuing Legal Education, under which Rule 3 requires every active attorney to complete 20 hours every two years, prorated by months of active status, with current and former full-time CNMI judges and justices exempt
v2.66.0
September 8, 2026
- The New Jersey Rules of Professional Conduct now have their own rule set, matching how every other jurisdiction on the site publishes its conduct rules. All 57 — RPC 1.6 through RPC 8.5 — were already on the site, but filed inside the general Rules of Court set because that is where the New Jersey Judiciary files them, as an appendix to Part 1. A reader searching for the “New Jersey Rules of Professional Conduct” found no such set. New Jersey took the ABA Model Rules as its structure and then departed from them in ways that matter: RPC 1.6 makes disclosure of confidential information mandatory where the lawyer reasonably believes it necessary to prevent a client from committing a criminal, illegal or fraudulent act likely to result in death, substantial bodily harm or substantial financial injury — where the Model Rule is permissive. Existing links to the old locations redirect
v2.65.0
September 8, 2026
- The New Jersey Rules of Evidence join the site with 90 provisions, taking New Jersey to nine rule sets. Adopted September 15, 1992 and effective July 1, 1993, they are numbered on the Federal Rules of Evidence but depart from them in ways that matter. They sit alongside the evidence statutes rather than replacing them: N.J.R.E. 101(c) provides that adopting them does not repeal an existing statute by implication, though a statute expressly superseded under N.J.S.A. 2A:84A-40 by an official note appended to a rule has no further effect. Their reach is unusually wide — Rule 101(a) applies them in all proceedings, civil, criminal, family, municipal or tax, and applies the privileges of Article V “without relaxation” to every branch and agency of government, not only to courts. Article V is the largest article here, codifying privileges New Jersey treats as statutory rather than common law. On expert testimony, Rule 702 carries the Court’s own 2026 Official Court Comment recording that the rule incorporates the reliability standard prescribed in In re Accutane Litigation, 234 N.J. 340 (2018). Coverage reflects amendments effective through July 1, 2024; Rules 103, 1101 and 1102 were never adopted and are shown as such
v2.64.0
September 8, 2026
- Delaware’s Superior Court Rules of Special Procedure — a single rule, and an unusual one, completing Delaware at 16 rule sets. When the General Assembly rewrote Delaware’s habitual offender statute in 2016 it opened a path for people already serving sentences imposed under the old version to ask for modification, and the Superior Court adopted this rule to govern how those petitions are brought and decided. Special Rule of Procedure 2017-1 sets out the whole sequence: the Office of Defense Services represents the petitioner unless private counsel is retained; nothing may be filed until a judge issues a certificate of eligibility, which counsel must request and support with specific averments about the sentence and time served; the Attorney General responds stating whether the petitioner qualifies; and only then may the petition itself be filed, setting out every ground for modification, a complete accounting of prior convictions, the petitioner’s conduct while incarcerated, and the results of a formal risk assessment. The court may dismiss summarily on the papers. The rule is numbered by year rather than in the Superior Court’s ordinary series and cites as “Del. Super. Ct. Spec. R. 2017-1”; this version took effect February 1, 2020 and applies to every pending or later-filed modification request
v2.63.0
September 8, 2026
- Delaware's trial courts below the Superior Court are now covered — nine new rule sets and 655 rules, taking Delaware from six sets to 15. The Justice of the Peace Court civil rules are the highest-volume civil forum in the state and the one most litigants meet first, covering debt actions and the court’s signature jurisdiction, summary possession — the landlord-tenant proceeding, with appeals running to the Court of Common Pleas. The Family Court civil rules are the largest of the new sets at 183 rules, with whole parts on divorce and annulment, child dependency and neglect, support, protection from abuse, and the Delaware Child Support Formula; this text reflects the protection-from-abuse amendments effective January 5, 2026. Coverage also includes the Court of Common Pleas civil and criminal rules, Family Court criminal rules governing juvenile delinquency, Justice of the Peace criminal and civil violations rules, the Lawyers’ Rules of Disciplinary Procedure — the procedural companion to the Rules of Professional Conduct, covering the Office of Disciplinary Counsel and the Board on Professional Responsibility — and the Rules for Continuing Legal Education
v2.62.0
September 8, 2026
- Nevada’s evidence law joins the site with 309 sections, completing Nevada’s coverage at 17 rule sets. Nevada has no rules of evidence: the Legislature enacted Title 4 of the Nevada Revised Statutes, “Witnesses and Evidence”, in 1971, and it is cited by section — “NRS 48.035”, never “Nev. R. Evid.” The concepts come from early drafts of the Federal Rules but the numbering is entirely Nevada’s, across ten chapters: general provisions, judicial notice and presumptions (ch. 47), admissibility (ch. 48), privileges (ch. 49), witnesses (ch. 50), hearsay (ch. 51), documentary evidence (ch. 52) and affidavits and foreign depositions (ch. 53), with three short chapters on proof of residence, findings of presumed death and tests of biological specimens. Two points of Nevada practice stand out. Expert testimony runs through NRS 50.275, and the Supreme Court of Nevada held in Hallmark v. Eldridge (2008) that it “has not adopted” Daubert, treating the federal decisions as persuasive rather than controlling. Privileges are codified rather than left to the common law, and chapter 49 is the largest here at 76 sections, running from lawyer-client and doctor-patient through the privileges for clergy, journalists and victims of sexual assault. Coverage reflects the 2025 amendments that took effect July 1, 2026
v2.61.0
September 8, 2026
- The Hawaiʻi Rules of Evidence join the site with 89 rules, completing Hawaiʻi’s coverage at 30 rule sets. These are statute, not court rules: the Legislature enacted them in 1980 as chapter 626 of the Hawaiʻi Revised Statutes and has amended them by session law ever since, most recently the victim-counselor privilege in 2023. They are cited as rules regardless — “HRE Rule 403” — and are numbered on the Federal Rules of Evidence, though the sequence opens with a rule the federal rules have no counterpart to, Rule 100 on title and citation. Rule 102’s own commentary states the limit of the borrowing: except for Articles III and V, these rules take the Federal Rules as their model. Those two articles are where Hawaiʻi genuinely diverges. Article III codifies presumptions in detail the federal rules never attempt, separating those that shift the burden of producing evidence from those that shift the burden of proof and naming sixteen specific presumptions. Article V rejects the federal approach outright: where the federal rule leaves privilege to the common law, HRE 501 recognizes privileges “only as provided” and then enumerates them, including physician-patient, psychologist-client, victim-counselor and trade secrets. Two further provisions have no federal analogue: Rule 409.5 makes expressions of sympathy or condolence inadmissible to prove liability, and Rule 1102 forbids the judge to comment on the evidence. Every rule carries the official commentary published with it
v2.60.0
September 7, 2026
- American Samoa joins the site with 11 rule sets and 427 rules — completing the roster at 56 of 56 U.S. jurisdictions. The rules are promulgated by the High Court and published by the American Samoa Bar Association. Almost every stateside assumption needs recalibrating: there is no federal district court on the islands, no certiorari path to the U.S. Supreme Court from the High Court, and the justices are appointed by the Secretary of the Interior. The civil rules follow the Federal Rules with a 20-day answer, but Rules 38 and 39 are marked “(Omitted)” — there is no civil jury under the rules as published. Criminal charging is by information rather than indictment, with no grand jury. The Land and Titles Rules are their own world: about 90% of American Samoa’s land is communally owned and controlled by matai, the Federal Rules have no application there, and a matai-title case is decided by the majority of four matai associate judges with the law-trained justice abstaining. Coverage also includes the Rules of Evidence, the Appellate Court Rules with their strict 10-day new-trial and notice sequence, the High Court Rules including the attorney discipline rules, and the Village Court Rules
v2.59.0
September 7, 2026
- Guam joins the site with 18 rule sets and 1,021 rules, from the Judiciary of Guam and the Compiler of Laws. Guam layers territory-wide rules over unusually detailed Superior Court local rules, and daily practice lives in the local ones — the General Rules, Civil Rules, Criminal Procedure Rules and Miscellaneous Rules, which carry the small claims rules at MR 5.1. There are no territory-wide rules of criminal procedure, and that is not a gap: Guam’s criminal procedure is statutory, so we publish the 31 procedural chapters of Title 8 of the Guam Code Annotated — home to one of the fastest speedy-trial clocks anywhere, 45 days from arraignment for a defendant in custody. Coverage also includes the Guam Rules of Civil Procedure, whose answer runs 20 days rather than the federal 21; the 2006 Rules of Evidence, whose Rule 702 the Supreme Court of Guam tied to Daubert in People v. Kusterbeck; the Rules of Appellate Procedure, where a criminal defendant has 10 days to appeal and the government 30; and the lawyer discipline rules that replaced the old regime in 2021
v2.58.0
September 7, 2026
- The District of Columbia joins the site with 21 rule sets and 996 rules. D.C. runs an unusually granular branch-by-branch scheme inside a single trial court, so which rules govern depends on which branch the case is in: the Civil and Criminal Divisions, five separate Family Court sets, Probate, Tax, Small Claims and Conciliation and the Landlord and Tenant Branch each have their own. The civil and criminal rules are deliberately mirrored on the Federal Rules under D.C. Code § 11-946, so federal practice instincts largely carry over — though Civil Rule 26(a)(1) initial disclosures are [Omitted], leaving only expert disclosures. There is no D.C. evidence set, and that is not a gap: the District has never adopted evidence rules, and the Court of Appeals adopted the substance of FRE 702 by en banc decision in Motorola, Inc. v. Murray rather than by rule. Both Probate rulesets are published, because an estate opened before August 22, 2022 is still governed by the older one. Also included: the Rules of the D.C. Court of Appeals — the District’s court of last resort, not the federal D.C. Circuit — and the Rules of Professional Conduct, whose Rule 5.4(b) has permitted nonlawyer ownership of a law practice since decades before Arizona or Utah
v2.57.0
September 7, 2026
- Wyoming joins the site with 43 rule sets and 1,094 rules — more separate rulesets than any other jurisdiction here. Wyoming runs a dedicated Chancery Court for commercial disputes above $50,000, built for the state’s LLC and trust industry, with its own civil and uniform rules and a statutory goal of resolving most cases within 150 days. Coverage includes the Rules of Civil Procedure, restyled in 2017 but keeping Wyoming’s own 20-day answer clock; the separate circuit court civil rules, where the answer runs 35 days from filing; criminal procedure, evidence and appellate procedure; small claims and juvenile courts; and the Rules of Professional Conduct and Code of Judicial Conduct with their official comments. Wyoming has no local rules by rule — W.R.C.P. 83(a)(2) forbids a court from making rules that apply only in that court
v2.56.0
September 7, 2026
- Alaska joins the site with 16 rule sets and 819 rules, from the court system’s own PDFs. Alaska runs a fully state-funded, unified court system with no counties, and publishes many standalone rulesets rather than one compilation. Coverage includes the Rules of Civil Procedure — where Rule 82 awards the prevailing party a schedule-based share of attorney’s fees in nearly every case — the Rules of Criminal Procedure with their 120-day speedy-trial clock under Rule 45, the Rules of Appellate Procedure for the split civil and criminal appeal routes, and the separate District Court civil, probate, child in need of aid, delinquency, adoption and minor offense sets. The Rules of Evidence are published with the court’s official Commentary volume attached to each rule, and the Rules of Professional Conduct with their Alaska-specific comments
v2.55.0
September 6, 2026
- Rhode Island joins the site with 28 rule sets and 1,060 rules, from the Judiciary’s own PDFs. Rhode Island gives each court its own rulesets, so coverage includes the Superior Court Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure and the separate Rules of Practice where calendar and motion-day mechanics actually live; the District Court civil, criminal and small claims rules; all four Family Court sets; and the Rules of Evidence, whose Rule 702 keeps the short pre-Daubert text. The Supreme Court Rules are published as Articles I–X, including appellate procedure with its 20-day notice of appeal, the Rules of Professional Conduct and the Code of Judicial Conduct, both with their official commentary included as notes. Probate is municipal in Rhode Island, so there is no statewide probate ruleset
v2.54.0
September 6, 2026
- Montana joins the site with 23 rule sets and 639 rules. Montana is one of the few states whose court rules are codified inside the statute code — the Supreme Court promulgates them, but they are printed and maintained as Montana Code Annotated locations, so Rule 56 lives at MCA 25-20-56 and is cited “M. R. Civ. P. 56”. Coverage includes the Rules of Civil Procedure, the Uniform District Court Rules that carry motion briefing and the form of papers, the Rules of Evidence and the Rules of Appellate Procedure — where the notice of appeal is filed with the Supreme Court clerk rather than the trial court. The justice and city court and municipal court appeal sets are included, as are the Rules of Professional Conduct and Code of Judicial Conduct with their preambles, bar admission and discipline, the Workers’ Compensation Court and the Water Court’s adjudication and claim examination rules. Montana’s criminal procedure is statutory, at MCA Title 46, rather than a set of rules
v2.53.0
September 5, 2026
- Maine joins the site with 16 rule sets and 754 rules, from the Judicial Branch’s own PDFs. Coverage includes the Rules of Civil Procedure, the Rules of Unified Criminal Procedure that have applied statewide since 2015, the Rules of Evidence and Rules of Appellate Procedure for the Law Court; probate, small claims and the electronic court systems rules; and the Rules of Professional Conduct, Code of Judicial Conduct and Bar Rules. The court’s Advisory Committee Notes are included as notes
v2.52.0
September 5, 2026
- Puerto Rico joins the site with 14 rule sets and 1,228 rules, from the Rama Judicial’s own PDFs. The rule text is in Spanish, as adopted — it is not translated, because a translation would not be the law. Coverage includes the Reglas de Procedimiento Civil de 2009, the Reglas de Procedimiento Criminal and the Reglas de Evidencia de 2009; the Reglamento del Tribunal de Apelaciones and the Reglamento del Tribunal Supremo; juvenile procedure; and the Reglas de Conducta Profesional de 2025 with their official comentarios, alongside the canons of judicial ethics, judicial discipline, bar admission and continuing legal education
v2.51.0
September 5, 2026
- Vermont joins the site with 18 rule sets and 820 rules. Vermont has one trial court — the Superior Court — with five divisions, each with its own ruleset: Civil, Criminal, Family, Probate and Environmental, the last of which is close to unique nationally. Coverage also includes the Rules of Evidence, Rules of Appellate Procedure for the Supreme Court — Vermont has no intermediate appellate court — small claims, electronic filing, the Supreme Court’s administrative orders, and the rules on professional conduct, judicial conduct, bar admission, discipline and public access to court records
v2.50.0
September 5, 2026
- New Hampshire joins the site with 11 rule sets and 921 rules. New Hampshire runs per-court rulesets with no unified compilation: the Rules of the Supreme Court, which is the state’s only appellate court; the Rules of the Superior Court, the only forum in the state for a jury trial; the three Circuit Court divisions — District, Family and Probate; the statewide Rules of Criminal Procedure, which govern both the Superior Court and the District Division; the Rules of Evidence and Rules of Professional Conduct; and each court’s supplemental electronic filing rules. Committee notes and the ABA comments published with the rules are included as notes