Civil Litigation
Civil Litigation Process
Litigation is the process of bringing, maintaining and defending a lawsuit. This process is very difficult, time-consuming, and costly. In addition, the entire process must comply with complex rules and regulations. The pretrial litigation process is divided into a pretrial and trial process. The pretrial litigation process can also be divided into several major steps. These steps include: pleadings, discovery, dismissals and pretrial judgments, and settlement conference.
The entire process begins when a party brings a dispute against another party to a court system. The party bringing the dispute or compliant is the plaintiff. The party on the receiving end of the complaint or lawsuit is referred to as the defendant. The paperwork filed with the court to initiate and respond to a lawsuit is called the pleadings. Major parts of the pleadings include the complaint, the answer, the cross-complaint, and the reply.
For the plaintiff to initiate a lawsuit, a complaint must be filed with the proper court system. The complaint is a document served to the defendant to initiate the lawsuit. This document must name the parties to the lawsuit, allege the ultimate facts and law violated, and contain a “prayer for relief” for a remedy to be awarded by the court. The length of the complaint will usually depend on the complexity of the case being heard. Once the process of filing a complaint is finished the court will issue a summons, a court order directing the defendant to appear in court and answer the complaint. The court will then serve the summons and the complaint to the defendant via sheriff or another government official. Although it is not recommended, the plaintiff also has the choice to privately deliver the summons and complaint to the defendant. Another popular choice for service of process is the use of a private process server.
Once the summons and complaint have been served to the...
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