Skip to Main Content

Circuit Riders: South Carolina Court Rules & Forms

Basic Legal Research Guide

South Carolina Court Rules

South Carolina Code Annotated; Court Rules volume.

Rules of civil and criminal procedure and rules of evidence specify in detail how parties must proceed to resolve their disputes in court. There are also local rules for specific courts like Family, Probate, and Magistrate courts, as well as rules of appellate procedure. 

The print South Carolina Code Annotated includes a paperback Court Rules volume of annotated South Carolina court rules. You can find specific court rules using the general A-I and J-Z indexes to the South Carolina Code Annotated. There is also a separate index for the court rules in the back of that volume. 
 

Click on the Court Rules link under QUICK LINKS on the South Carolina Judicial Department’s home page to search or browse the un-annotated South Carolina court rules online for free.

South Carolina Judicial Department’s website; link to Court Rules located to the right of the page under "Quick Links"

South Carolina Court Forms

South Carolina trial and appellate courts provide forms to file certain matters with their courts. 

Click on the Court Forms link under QUICK LINKS on the South Carolina Judicial Department's home page to access these forms by Court, Title, or Form ID.

Court Forms page on the SC Judicial Department's website.

South Carolina Forms Index

 

The South Carolina Forms Index is a
finding aid maintained by the
University of South Carolina Law Library.

The Forms Index aims to organize
South Carolina Court forms
from the SC Judicial Department's website by topic to improve ease of use.  
The Forms Index provides keywords
to allow users to perform a
Control+F / Command+F search
for forms of interest.

 

 

Home page of South Carolina Forms Index guide.

South Carolina Court Approved Form Packets & LawHelp.org/SC

For parties representing themselves (referred to as self-represented litigants (SRLs), the South Carolina Judicial Department has posted court approved Divorce and Child Support Modification form packets under the General Public tab on its home page.  

Home page of the SC Judicial Department showing a General Public tab in the middle of the page that contains form packets for divorce and child support.


LawHelp.org/SC, a project of South Carolina Legal Services (SCLS), offers interviews to help parties complete these and other SC court approved forms, including visitation and order of protection forms.

Decorative

Lawhelp.org/sc forms page.


South Carolina Legal Services (SCLS) also offers Online Classrooms on their LawHelp.org//SC website. These online classrooms include forms, instructions, and videos to help you represent yourself in court on several legal issues.

Lawhelp.org/sc's Online Classroom page.

 

Public Libraries & Gale Legal Forms

Some public libraries in South Carolina also provide their members access to the South Carolina Legal Forms Library by Gale Legal Forms, which you can search, browse by category, and download in Word. 

South Carolina Legal Forms Library page from Richland Library's Gale Legal Forms.

Citing South Carolina Court Rules

Citing a South Carolina court rule requires the rule number and abbreviated name of the court rule.  A date is not required, as long as you are citing to the current rule. Below are examples of cites to the South Carolina rules of civil procedure, criminal procedure, evidence, and appellate procedure. The blue bullets in the citations represent spaces.

Rule12,SCRCP.     
Rule5,SCRCrimP.

Rule403,
SCRE.
Rule203,SCRAP.


See South Carolina Appellate Court Rule 268 (Citation of South Carolina Authority) for how to cite these rules and rules for specific South Carolina courts.