Louisiana — Court Rules & Rules of Practice Guide

1. Court System Overview

Louisiana — the nation’s mixed civil-law jurisdiction — runs: district courts (judicial districts; general jurisdiction), city and parish courts (limited civil/misdemeanor; small claims divisions in city courts), justice of the peace courts (very small civil; no jury), specialized juvenile courts (in the largest parishes; elsewhere juvenile jurisdiction sits in district court), five circuit Courts of Appeal, and the Louisiana Supreme Court (direct capital appeals; writ jurisdiction; attorney discipline). Procedure is codified by the legislature: the Code of Civil Procedure, Code of Criminal Procedure, Code of Evidence, and Children’s Code. The Supreme Court adds administrative rules and uniform lower-court rules.

2. The Ruleset Map

Louisiana’s map is legislative Codes first, court rules second:

Layer 1 — Legislative Codes (primary procedure):

Layer 2 — Court rules:

• Rules for Louisiana District Courts and Juvenile Courts (uniform district-court rules with per-district appendices — verified at lasc.org) — motion practice, scheduling, family/domestic rules (Titles I–IV).
• Uniform Rules — Courts of Appeal (one uniform set for all five circuits; writ-application mechanics in Rule 4).
• Louisiana Supreme Court Rules (incl. Rule X — writ applications; Rule XIX — lawyer discipline; Rule XVII — admission).
• Local rules/appendices per judicial district (the uniform district rules incorporate district-specific appendices).
• City/parish/JP courts: statutory procedure (R.S. Title 13) + local rules; JP civil jurisdiction capped at $5,000 (C.C.P. art. 4911 — verified); small claims divisions in city courts (≤$5,000 exclusive of interest/costs/fees, R.S. 13:5202 — verified; no right to appeal — the R.S. 13:5204(B) citation must warn “IF YOU LOSE IN SMALL CLAIMS COURT, YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO APPEAL” — verified).
• Business court: none appears in the Rules for Louisiana District Courts (uniform titles and chapters) or in the LSBA’s court-structure page; any commercial-docket practice would sit in a district’s own appendix/local rules.

3. Civil Litigation Mechanics

Louisiana civil procedure uses its own vocabulary — the biggest onboarding hurdle:

• Pleadings: a petition (not complaint) answered after citation (not summons) service; answer 21 days (30 when discovery is served with the petition; 15 after an exception is overruled/referred to the merits or after service of an amended petition — verified from art. 1001 text; the 15→21-day change was Acts 2021, No. 174, effective Jan. 1, 2022).
• No motion to dismiss: attacks come by exceptions — declinatory (jurisdiction/venue), dilatory (prematurity, vagueness), peremptory (no cause of action, prescription, res judicata) (arts. 921–934). “No cause of action” ≈ 12(b)(6) but with civil-law framing.
• Prescription, not limitations: time bars are substantive civil-law prescription (liberative prescription; the 2024 tort revision — C.C. art. 3493.1 — moved delictual actions from one year to two years for injuries sustained on or after July 1, 2024 — verified).
• Discovery: C.C.P. arts. 1420–1475, federal-influenced (range verified from the Code’s table of contents — Book II, Title III, Chapter 3 “Discovery”).
• No default “notice pleading” culture: fact pleading with prayer specificity; jury trials require a written demand plus a bond for costs in the amount and time the court sets under art. 1734 (art. 1733 — verified at legis.la.gov; in delictual suits where an individual petitioner judicially admits a claim over $10,000 but under $50,000, a $5,000 cash deposit within 60 days of the request substitutes and failure to post it waives the jury; the demand is due within 10 days after service of the last pleading directed to a jury-triable issue), and no jury where no individual petitioner’s cause of action exceeds $10,000 exclusive of interest and costs (art. 1732 — verified).
• Default judgments: the 2021 revision abolished the old “preliminary default”; under art. 1702 (verified) the plaintiff proves a prima facie case by competent, admitted evidence (affidavit proof suffices for conventional obligations/open accounts; testimony + corroboration for delictual claims) and must give seven days’ pre-judgment notice to a defendant with counsel of record or attorney contact.

4. Criminal Practice Mechanics

• Path: felonies by grand jury indictment (capital/life-mandatory crimes) or bill of information; district court trial; misdemeanors in district/city courts.
• Time limits (verified from art. 578): trial-commencement limits — capital 3 years, felony 2 years, misdemeanor 1 year from institution — plus art. 701 speedy-trial motions (verified: remedy is release without bail / discharge of bail obligation, not dismissal; post-motion clocks of 120/180 days for felonies and 30/60 days for misdemeanors, in/out of custody) and separate institution-of-prosecution limits (arts. 571–576; art. 571 verified — no time limit for capital/life-punishable crimes). Three different clock families — keep them straight.
• Jury quirks (verified from art. 782): capital and (for offenses on or after Jan. 1, 2019) mandatory-hard-labor felonies — 12 jurors, unanimous (post-Ramos codification); pre-2019 hard-labor offenses — 12 jurors, 10 concurring; offenses where hard labor is merely possible — 6 jurors, unanimous.
• Discovery: arts. 716–729 (2013 reciprocal reform — art. 716 verified, amended by Acts 2013, No. 250; note the state may withhold its witnesses’ statements until just before opening statement and owes no witness list).
• Post-conviction: application under arts. 924–930.8 filed in the trial court; art. 930.8 verified — no application considered more than 2 years after the conviction and sentence become final (with exceptions); capital post-conviction matters get distinct treatment at the Supreme Court — its Rule X § 4(C) allows a 50-page memorandum in a capital post-conviction writ application versus 25 pages otherwise (lasc.org).
• Criminal appeals: motion for appeal (art. 914 — verified: made orally in open court or by written motion, within 30 days of the judgment/ruling or of the ruling on a timely motion to reconsider sentence) — an order granting appeal, not a mere notice.

5. Evidence

• Louisiana Code of Evidence (1988) — legislative, FRE-influenced but with civil-law adaptations; cited “La. C.E. art. 403.”
• Experts: Daubert-Foret standard — C.E. art. 702 verified: it carries the FRE 702 reliability language (sufficient facts/data, reliable principles and methods, reliably applied), added by Acts 2014, No. 630 (later tweaks in 2019 — eyewitness-memory experts — and 2024). State v. Foret, 628 So. 2d 1116 (La. Nov. 30, 1993), which discusses Daubert v. Merrell Dow; rely on art. 702’s own text for the standard.
• Distinctives (verified at legis.la.gov): C.C.P. art. 1450 governs use of depositions at trial — impeachment; a party’s or designee’s deposition for any purpose; unavailable or more-than-100-mile witnesses; and, unusually, an expert’s deposition may be used for any purpose on notice, subject to a 10-day objection that requires live testimony at the objector’s expense. The old res gestae idea survives as C.E. art. 801(D)(4) (“things said or done”: spontaneous words and acts that are necessary incidents or immediate concomitants of the criminal act are defined as non-hearsay).

6. Appellate Mechanics

• Two appeal species: suspensive (stays execution; 30 days + security — verified from art. 2123) vs. devolutive (no stay; 60 days — verified from art. 2087) — the choice is strategic and security-driven.
• Writ culture: interlocutory rulings are reviewed by supervisory writs to the courts of appeal — verified from the Uniform Rules (hosted by the Fifth Circuit): Rule 4-2 requires notice of intent to opposing parties and the trial judge with a request to set a return date; Rule 4-3 caps the return date at 30 days from notice of judgment (civil) or the ruling (criminal) — a daily practice tool, not an exception. Supreme Court review is by writ of certiorari: the 30-day deadline runs from transmission/mailing of the notice of the court of appeal’s judgment (or of the denial of rehearing) and is set by C.C.P. art. 2166 and Supreme Court Rule I § 3(B) (no extensions), while Rule X governs writ-grant considerations and application contents (25-page memorandum; oppositions due within 30 days of the Court’s acknowledgment letter under Rule X § 5) — verified at legis.la.gov and lasc.org.
• Routing: civil/criminal appeals → circuit courts of appeal (by parish); capital appeals directly to the Supreme Court (verified — LSBA: “immediate appellate jurisdiction … in capital cases where the death penalty has been imposed”).
• City/parish/JP courts: JP-court judgments are appealed for trial de novo to the parish court, or to the district court if there is no parish court (art. 4924 — verified); city and parish court judgments are appealed to the court of appeal (art. 5001 — verified), not the district court; small-claims judgments unappealable (R.S. 13:5204 — verified).
• Louisiana appellate courts can render judgment rather than merely remand: C.C.P. art. 2164 directs the appellate court to “render any judgment which is just, legal, and proper upon the record on appeal” and allows damages, including attorney fees, for a frivolous appeal or writ application (verified at legis.la.gov). The scope of civil fact review on appeal rests on the Louisiana Constitution and case law — check both.

7. Rules of Professional Conduct

• Louisiana Rules of Professional Conduct — Model Rules-based numbering, adopted by the Supreme Court; embedded as Article XIV of the LSBA Articles of Incorporation, which points to the LADB-published text and provides that Article XIV “can be amended only by the Supreme Court of Louisiana” (verified from the LSBA Articles of Incorporation PDF); cited “La. R. Prof. Conduct 3.3.”
• Louisiana variations (verified from the LADB-published rules, amendments through May 10, 2023): Rules 7.1–7.10 — advertisements and unsolicited written communications must be filed with the LSBA for evaluation by its Rules of Professional Conduct Committee (Rule 7.7) and carry an LSBA advertising filing number (Rule 7.2(a)(3)), with exemptions in Rule 7.8; Rule 1.15(g) requires an IOLTA account at a Louisiana Bar Foundation-certified eligible institution.

8. Attorney Discipline & Enforcement

From the Rule XIX text (LADB PDF) and the LSBA:

• Governing rule: Louisiana Supreme Court Rule XIX.
• Flow: complaint → Office of Disciplinary Counsel (screening/investigation; LSBA: only ~15% need formal action, i.e., ~85% resolved early; ACAP mediation) → hearing committees (verified: two lawyers + one public member each) → Louisiana Attorney Disciplinary Board appellate-style review of committee findings → Louisiana Supreme Court (final; “In re ___” opinions).
• Sanctions: admonition → public reprimand → probation → suspension (deferred portions common) → disbarment → permanent disbarment (verified from Rule XIX: the court “retains the discretion to permanently disbar the lawyer and permanently prohibit any such lawyer from being readmitted”).
• Records/publications at ladb.org.

9. Newcomer Orientation Notes

• Learn the vocabulary or drown: petition/citation/exceptions/prescription/devolutive/suspensive/writs — Louisiana practice reads differently because it is different.
• The Children’s Code is a separate world — juvenile practice has its own complete code, courts, and deadlines.
• Uniform District Court Rules + district appendices: always check the appendix for your judicial district (motion days, orders).
• Writ practice is core competency — interlocutory strategy in Louisiana means Rule 4 writ applications with tight return dates.
• E-filing: the uniform Rules for District Courts contain no e-filing rule (they address facsimile filing under R.S. 13:850 and judges’ electronic signatures), so trial-court e-filing depends on each clerk of court; the Supreme Court runs its own system under Rule XLII (Court Data/Document Exchange — verified at lasc.org) and the Second Circuit publishes its own e-filing rule/instructions.
• Self-help: louisianalawhelp.org; city-court small-claims guides; LSBA public pages (court structure — verified).
• Out-of-state counsel: PHV under Supreme Court Rule XVII § 13 (verified at lasc.org): the out-of-state attorney must associate Louisiana-licensed counsel (R.S. 37:214), first files a verified Application for Pro Hac Vice Admission with the Louisiana Attorney Disciplinary Board (not the LSBA) with a non-refundable $450 fee (waived for pro bono representation), obtains Disciplinary Counsel’s approval letter, and in-state counsel then moves for admission in the court or agency where the matter is pending.

10. Sources & Verification

Sources fetched in pass 2 (2026-08-28) — legis.la.gov’s site and lasc.org’s HTML pages block automated fetch (JS-only shell), so code articles were verified from Justia’s reproductions (labeled fallback); court-rule and discipline texts from official court/board/bar sites:

• Code of Civil Procedure (Justia fallback): art. 1001 (answer delays): https://law.justia.com/codes/louisiana/code-of-civil-procedure/article-1001/ ; art. 2087 (devolutive 60 days): …/article-2087/ ; art. 2123 (suspensive 30 days + security): …/article-2123/ ; art. 1732 ($10,000 jury floor): …/article-1732/ ; art. 1702 (default judgments): …/article-1702/ ; art. 4911 (JP $5,000): …/article-4911/ ; art. 4924 (JP appeal de novo): …/article-4924/ ; art. 5001 (city/parish appeals → court of appeal): …/article-5001/ ; discovery range TOC (arts. 1420–1475): https://law.justia.com/codes/louisiana/code-of-civil-procedure/
• Civil Code art. 3493.1 (two-year delictual prescription, eff. 7/1/2024) (Justia fallback): https://law.justia.com/codes/louisiana/civil-code/article-3493-1/
• Code of Criminal Procedure (Justia fallback): arts. 578, 701, 571, 716, 782, 914, 930.8: https://law.justia.com/codes/louisiana/code-of-criminal-procedure/article-578/ (etc., same pattern)
• Code of Evidence art. 702 (FRE-702 reliability language; 2014 amendment) (Justia fallback): https://law.justia.com/codes/louisiana/code-of-evidence/article-702/
• Small claims (Justia fallback, R.S. Title 13): R.S. 13:5202 ($5,000 cap): https://law.justia.com/codes/louisiana/revised-statutes/title-13/rs-13-5202/ ; R.S. 13:5204 (no-appeal warning): …/rs-13-5204/
• Uniform Rules, Courts of Appeal incl. Rules 1-2, 4-2, 4-3 (official — Fifth Circuit): https://www.fifthcircuit.org/uniform.aspx ; Second Circuit rules page (uniform-rules references, e-filing): https://www.la2nd.org/local-rules-of-court/
• Rules for Louisiana District Courts and Juvenile Courts (official, from pass 1): https://www.lasc.org/rules/dist.ct/finalrules.pdf ; https://www.lasc.org/DistrictCourtRules
• Rule XIX full text (official — LADB): https://www.ladb.org/docs/Publication/xix.pdf ; LADB decisions/records: https://www.ladb.org/DR/
• LSBA (official bar): court structure (five circuits, JP $5,000, capital appeals, discipline jurisdiction): https://www.lsba.org/Public/CourtStructure.aspx ; discipline overview (~85% early resolution, ACAP): https://www.lsba.org/PracticeAssistance/DisciplinaryProcedure.aspx

Sources fetched 2026-09-02 (flag-resolution pass 3):

• Official — Louisiana Supreme Court Rule I (General Filing), § 3(B) writ-application timeliness (30 days from mailing of notice of court of appeal judgment/denial of rehearing; no extensions; 10-day expedited-review window), fetched via headless browser: https://www.lasc.org/Supreme_Court_Rules?p=RuleI
• Official — Louisiana Supreme Court Rule X (Writ Applications): § 1 grant considerations, §§ 3–4 contents (25-page memorandum; 50 pages in capital post-conviction), § 5 opposition within 30 days of acknowledgment letter: https://www.lasc.org/Supreme_Court_Rules?p=RuleX
• Official — Louisiana Supreme Court Rule XVII § 13 (Pro Hac Vice Admission): association with Louisiana counsel per R.S. 37:214, application filed with the Louisiana Attorney Disciplinary Board, $450 non-refundable fee, pro bono exemption, motion by in-state counsel: https://www.lasc.org/Supreme_Court_Rules?p=RuleXVII
• Official — Louisiana Supreme Court Rule XLII (Electronic Filing; Court Data/Document Exchange): https://www.lasc.org/Supreme_Court_Rules?p=RuleXLII ; Supreme Court rules index (confirms rule titles): https://www.lasc.org/Supreme_Court_Rules
• Official — Code of Civil Procedure at legis.la.gov: art. 1733 (jury demand; bond for costs; $5,000 cash deposit; 10-day demand window): https://legis.la.gov/Legis/Law.aspx?d=111291 ; art. 1450 (use of depositions): https://legis.la.gov/Legis/Law.aspx?d=111223 ; art. 2164 (appellate court renders any just, legal and proper judgment): https://legis.la.gov/Legis/Law.aspx?d=111403 ; art. 2166 (30-day certiorari delay): https://legis.la.gov/Legis/Law.aspx?d=111405
• Official — Code of Evidence art. 801 (D)(4) “things said or done” (res gestae as non-hearsay): https://legis.la.gov/Legis/Law.aspx?d=72511
• Official — Rules for Louisiana District Courts (full PDF; checked for business/commercial court and e-filing provisions — none; facsimile filing under R.S. 13:850 and electronic signatures present): https://www.lasc.org/rules/dist.ct/finalrules.pdf
• Official — LSBA Articles of Incorporation (Article XIV — Rules of Professional Conduct, amendable only by the Supreme Court): https://www.lsba.org/documents/Executive/ArticlesIncorporation.pdf (linked from https://www.lsba.org/BarGovernance/ByLawsAndArticles.aspx); LSBA court-structure page re-checked for any business court (none): https://www.lsba.org/Public/CourtStructure.aspx
• Official — Louisiana Rules of Professional Conduct, LADB publication (Rule 1.15(g) IOLTA; Rules 7.2(a)(3), 7.7, 7.8 advertising filing and review): https://www.ladb.org/docs/Publication/ROPC/ROPC.pdf
• Labeled fallback (secondary) — CourtListener record for State v. Foret, 628 So. 2d 1116 (La. Nov. 30, 1993), confirming citation, court, date and that the opinion discusses Daubert (full text not retrievable): https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1661393/state-v-foret/

Sources fetched 2026-09-24 (claim-by-claim audit):

• Official code text as published on courtrules.net (imported from legis.la.gov): La. C.C.P. arts. 1001, 2087, 2123, 4911; La. C.Cr.P. arts. 578, 930.8 — all matched. These now carry the claims the 2026-08-28 pass had verified from Justia reproductions.

Not verified (flagged): none.