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 Resources tab on the South Carolina Judicial Department’s home page to search or browse the un-annotated South Carolina court rules online for free.
The South Carolina Supreme Court has made some forms available for use in the state's courts. These are found on the sccourts.org site in the Resources tab.
The South Carolina Forms Index is a research tool created and 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.
Forms from other providers are also indexed, which are not court created or approved but might be helpful.
For parties representing themselves (referred to as self-represented litigants - "SRL"s, the South Carolina Judicial Department has posted court approved Divorce, Child Support Modification, and Visitation form packets under the Resources tab & General Public list on its home page.
LawHelp.org/SC, a project of South Carolina Legal Services (SCLS), offers self-help forms and interviews to help parties complete these and other SC court approved forms, including visitation and order of protection forms.
South Carolina Legal Services (SCLS) also has a YouTube channel with a variety of informational videos, which is available from the Video Tab on the LawHelp.org//SC website.
The USC Law Library and 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.
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 dots in the citations represent spaces.
Rule•12,•SCRCP.
Rule•5,•SCRCrimP.
Rule•403,•SCRE.
Rule•203,•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.