District of Columbia Court Rules (2026)
We publish 22 sets of District of Columbia court rules, totaling 1017 rules. The District runs an unusually granular branch-by-branch scheme inside a single trial court: the Superior Court has separate rulesets for the Civil and Criminal Divisions, for each part of the Family Court, for Probate, Tax, Small Claims and Conciliation, and for the Landlord and Tenant Branch, so the rules you need depend on which branch your case is in. The civil and criminal rules are deliberately mirrored on the Federal Rules under D.C. Code § 11-946 — a rule that modifies a Federal Rule takes effect only if the Court of Appeals approves it — which makes D.C. practice unusually portable for federal litigators. There is NO D.C. evidence set, and that is not a gap: the District has never adopted evidence rules, so evidence is common law plus statute, and the Court of Appeals adopted the substance of Federal Rule of Evidence 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. The D.C. Court of Appeals is the District's court of last resort — there is no intermediate court, and it is not the federal D.C. Circuit. Each rule includes the full text, a plain-English summary, committee notes, amendment history, and cross-references to related rules.
District of Columbia Court Rules & Rules of Practice
How this jurisdiction's courts and rules are organized, written for lawyers new to it: the court system, every ruleset a litigator touches, and how a case actually moves. Last verified September 24, 2026. For informational purposes only.
- Court System Overview
- The Ruleset Map
- Civil Litigation Mechanics
- Criminal Practice Mechanics
- Evidence
- Appellate Mechanics
- Rules of Professional Conduct
- Attorney Discipline & Enforcement
- Newcomer Orientation Notes
- Sources & Verification
Superior Court Rules of Civil Procedure
The Civil Division's rules, deliberately mirrored on the Federal Rules under the conformity mandate of D.C. Code § 11-946 — a rule that modifies a Federal Rule takes effect only if the Court of Appeals approves it, so federal practice instincts mostly carry over. The answer is due 21 days after service under Rule 12(a)(1)(A), but 60 days for the United States, the District, and their agencies and officers sued in an official capacity. The notable divergence is discovery: Rule 26(a)(1) initial disclosures and 26(a)(3) pretrial disclosures are both [Omitted], leaving only expert disclosures under 26(a)(2), timed by the Rule 16(b) scheduling order. Local additions carry Roman suffixes — Rule 40-I random assignment, Rule 40-II designation to the complex Civil I calendar.
Updated 2026 Edition
BrowseSuperior Court Rules of the Probate Division (Cases Prior to August 22, 2022)
The Probate Division's prior rules, which the court still publishes and which still govern an estate or guardianship opened before August 22, 2022. Both sets are operative, and which one applies turns on when the matter was opened, not on today's date — so the older set is not archival. Numbering is flat, running from Rule 1 rather than the revised set's hundreds-by-subject scheme.
Updated 2026 Edition
BrowseSuperior Court Rules Governing Domestic Relations Proceedings
Divorce, custody, support and property division in the Family Court. The set tracks the civil rules closely enough to share their numbering, including the Roman-suffixed local additions — Rule 64-I attachment before judgment, Rule 64-II replevin — so a civil litigator can navigate it, but the Family Court's own general rules govern assignment and magistrate judge practice. More than a third of the numbers in the court's index are deleted placeholders left in place to preserve the parallel with the civil set.
Updated 2026 Edition
BrowseSuperior Court Rules of the Probate Division
The Probate Division's rules as revised effective August 22, 2022, governing decedents' estates, guardianships and conservatorships, and trusts. Numbering runs in hundreds by subject — the 100s for general provisions and filings, the 300s and 400s for estate administration, the 600s for trust proceedings. The Register of Wills reviews ex parte matters and consent orders before they reach the judge assigned to fiduciary matters (Rule 102). An estate opened before August 22, 2022 is governed by the prior set, published here alongside this one.
Updated 2026 Edition
BrowseSuperior Court Rules of Criminal Procedure
The Criminal Division's rules, mirrored on the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. The headline is split prosecutorial authority: under D.C. Code § 23-101 the D.C. Attorney General prosecutes offenses punishable by fine only or by up to a year, plus specified offenses, and "all other criminal prosecutions shall be conducted in the name of the United States by the United States attorney" — so felonies in Superior Court are brought by federal prosecutors. Release runs through D.C. Code §§ 23-1321–1331 by way of Rule 46(a), which starts from personal recognizance or an unsecured bond and requires the least restrictive further condition; the Pretrial Services Agency supervises. A defendant detained under § 23-1322(b) must be indicted within 90 days and tried within 100.
Updated 2026 Edition
BrowseRules of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals
The rules of the District's court of last resort — there is no intermediate court, and this is not the federal D.C. Circuit. FRAP-flavored: the notice of appeal is due 30 days after entry of the judgment and is filed with the Clerk of the SUPERIOR Court, extendable up to 30 more days for excusable neglect or good cause. The court sits in three-judge divisions unless it orders a hearing en banc, and under M.A.P. v. Ryan, 285 A.2d 310 (D.C. 1971), a division cannot overrule prior precedent — only the en banc court can. Rule 46 governs bar admission and Rule 49 the unauthorized practice of law, including pro hac vice appearance; both carry the volume's only official commentary.
Updated 2026 Edition
BrowseRules Governing Juvenile Proceedings
Delinquency and persons-in-need-of-supervision practice in the Family Court, mirrored on the criminal rules but with its own vocabulary and timing. Juvenile matters are prosecuted by the D.C. Attorney General rather than the United States Attorney — one of the clearest lines in the District's split prosecutorial authority under D.C. Code § 23-101.
Updated 2026 Edition
BrowseDistrict of Columbia Rules of Professional Conduct
Adopted by the Court of Appeals and published by the D.C. Bar, Model Rules-based but with famous District departures. Rule 5.4(b) has allowed a nonlawyer to hold a financial interest or managerial authority in a law practice since long before Arizona or Utah — provided the organization's sole purpose is providing legal services, the nonlawyers abide by these Rules and perform professional services assisting in their delivery, the lawyers remain responsible for them, and the conditions are in writing. Rule 1.6 protects any client "confidence or secret" rather than the Model Rules' narrower formulation, and 1.6(k) makes the government lawyer's client the employing agency unless law, regulation or order provides otherwise. Each rule is followed by its official Comment.
Updated 2026 Edition
BrowseRules Governing Neglect and Abuse Proceedings
Child protection practice: the removal and shelter-care hearing, the fact-finding hearing on neglect, disposition, permanency planning, and periodic review. A standalone Family Court set, distinct from both the juvenile delinquency rules and the adoption rules, though a single case may move between them.
Updated 2026 Edition
BrowseCrime Victim Compensation Program Rules
The rules of the Superior Court program that compensates victims of crime: who is eligible, what expenses are payable — medical, funeral, lost wages, replacement clothing — how a claim is filed and verified, how awards are paid, and the consequences of a false claim. Administrative rather than adversarial, and the only D.C. set published as program rules rather than rules of a division.
Updated 2026 Edition
BrowseRules of Procedure for the Landlord and Tenant Branch
The eviction docket's own rules, governing one of the court's highest-volume branches. A complaint must use one of four court forms — 1A for rent only, 1B for a lease violation, 1C for both, 1D for commercial premises — served with a Form 1S summons. The distinctive mechanism is the protective order under Rule 12-I: after a hearing on the equities, or by consent, the court directs the defendant to deposit money into the court registry rather than pay rent to the plaintiff. The branch runs a Resource Center and an Eviction Diversion Program alongside the rules.
Updated 2026 Edition
BrowseRules of Procedure for the Small Claims and Conciliation Branch
The Superior Court's informal track, for claims that do not exceed $10,000 exclusive of interest, attorney fees, protest fees and costs (D.C. Code § 11-1321). Defendants in most cases need not file a written answer, and a jury is available only on request. Representation is regulated: only active D.C. Bar members — or persons authorized under Court of Appeals Rules 48 and 49 — may appear for another, and a corporation or partnership plaintiff must appear through a D.C. Bar member under Rule 9. Review is not an appeal as of right; a small-claims judgment reaches the Court of Appeals only by application for allowance of appeal under D.C. Code § 11-721.
Updated 2026 Edition
BrowseSuperior Court Rules Governing Adoption Proceedings
Adoption practice in the Family Court, from the petition through the interlocutory and final decrees. Rule 1 makes the civil rules applicable except as these rules provide, and the set carries the consent and revocation machinery — a motion to revoke consent under Rule 6 is the provision most often reached for. Proceedings are closed: Rule 20 limits who may be admitted.
Updated 2026 Edition
BrowseRules Governing the District of Columbia Bar, Rule XI: Disciplinary Proceedings
What happens when a complaint is made against a District of Columbia lawyer, in twenty-two sections. Section 1 sets out who is subject to discipline — every member of the D.C. Bar, anyone appearing pro hac vice, Special Legal Consultants, visiting clinical professors, and lawyers already suspended or disbarred — and records that there is no statute of limitations on a disciplinary proceeding. Section 2 states the grounds. Sections 4 through 7 build the machinery: the Board on Professional Responsibility, the Hearing Committees, Disciplinary Counsel and the Executive Attorney. Section 8 is the investigation and the hearing, section 8.1 diversion, and section 9 what the Board and the Court of Appeals do with a Hearing Committee's report. Section 10 covers discipline after a criminal conviction, section 11 reciprocal discipline imposed elsewhere, sections 12 and 12.1 disbarment by consent and negotiated discipline, and section 13 the incapacitated attorney. Sections 14 and 15 are the duties of a disbarred or suspended lawyer and the protection of clients when a lawyer becomes unavailable; section 16 is reinstatement, section 17 confidentiality, section 18 subpoenas, and section 20 the approved depositories and the IOLTA program. The Court of Appeals adopts Rule XI but the D.C. Bar publishes it, which is why it was missing.
Updated 2026 Edition
BrowseGeneral Rules of the Family Court
The rules that apply across the whole Family Court, which unusually operates several standalone rulesets rather than one. These cover the matters common to all of them — assignment, the one family/one judge principle, magistrate judge practice, and the general provisions the Domestic Relations, Juvenile, Neglect and Abuse, Adoption, and Parentage and Support rules each build on.
Updated 2026 Edition
BrowseSuperior Court Rules for Mental Retardation Proceedings
Commitment and habilitation proceedings for people with intellectual disabilities. The court still publishes the set under its original "Mental Retardation" title, which is how it must be cited even though the statutory vocabulary has since changed. Rule 8C governs the limited discovery available in a commitment proceeding, and Rule 4B(d) rather than Rule 8C is what addresses pre-trial hearings.
Updated 2026 Edition
BrowseRules Governing Proceedings in the Domestic Violence Division
Civil protection order practice in the Domestic Violence Division, from the petition and temporary order through the hearing and the CPO itself. Rule 12 requires the court to make the findings of fact essential to its conclusion of law at the close of a trial or hearing. The Division is one of the two parts of the court still filing through CaseFileXpress rather than eFileDC.
Updated 2026 Edition
BrowseRules of Procedure on Mental Health
Civil commitment practice: emergency detention, proceedings before the Commission on Mental Health, the court hearing on the Commission's report, trial on mental illness and dangerousness, disposition, and the periodic review of a committed person on convalescent leave. Rule 17 provides the limited discovery available in a commitment trial under D.C. Code § 21-545, running against the statutory restrictions on disclosure of mental health records.
Updated 2026 Edition
BrowseRules of Practice and Procedure Before the Tax Division
Tax appeals in the Superior Court's Tax Division: the petition and its contents, service, the answer, and the trial and appeal of real property and other District tax assessments. The set incorporates named civil rules by reference rather than restating them — Civil Rules 8, 12(b)–(i), 13 and 15 govern pleadings, and Civil Rule 5.2's privacy protections are carried in through Tax Rule 3.
Updated 2026 Edition
BrowseRules Governing Proceedings Under D.C. Code § 23-110
The District's post-conviction remedy, the local analogue to a federal § 2255 motion, with its own Superior Court rules. It largely displaces federal habeas: § 23-110(g) bars any Superior Court, federal or state court from entertaining a habeas application unless the movant has sought § 23-110 relief and the motion remedy is inadequate or ineffective. Actual-innocence claims go instead under the Innocence Protection Act, D.C. Code § 22-4135, which may be made at any time.
Updated 2026 Edition
BrowseSuperior Court Rules Governing Parentage and Support Proceedings
A short set governing paternity and child support actions in the Family Court, including the streamlined procedures for establishing parentage and the interaction with administrative support orders. Six rules, read alongside the Family Court's general rules.
Updated 2026 Edition
BrowseSuperior Court Agency Review Rules
Two rules governing the petitions for review of District agency decisions that belong in the Superior Court. Most D.C. agency review does not: under D.C. Code § 11-722 the Court of Appeals reviews orders of the Mayor, the Council and District agencies directly, so an administrative litigant usually skips the trial court entirely.
Updated 2026 Edition
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