U.S. Civil Procedure Civil Procedure Materials Overview - Menu of Sources Overview Broadly speaking, civil procedure consists of the rules by which courts conduct civil trials.
Substantive law includes contract law , tort law , and so on.
A procedural system provides the mechanism for applying substantive law to real disputes. A good procedural system ensures that similar cases will be treated similarly by the courts. The Plaintiff also has the initial burden of demonstrating he has a legitimate claim. In America, civil procedure usually takes the form of a series of rules and judicial practices. See, for example , California's rules of civil actions , New York's rules of civil procedure , or Indiana's rules of trial procedure .