The Supreme Court’s Office of Administrative Counsel has published an up-to-date set of the General Rules of Practice for the Superior and District Courts of North Carolina.  This is the first codification of the Rules since the promulgation of the rule set in 1970.  The Court has adopted many amendments to the rules that differ in form and style from the original, and so in order to improve readability and clarity, the Administrative Counsel has made several non-substantive changes to the form and style of the new codification that differ from the “as-approved” rule. However, this set also contains both Editor’s Notes, which explain those changes, as well as History Notes, which contain links to the published orders of the Court that contain the “as approved” version.

In addition to being an extraordinarily useful resource, this is an important step towards achieving uniform local rules, a prerequisite to a full electronic filing system. The General Rules of Practice are available here.

-Zack