Local Court Rules

To find local rules for a federal district court on Westlaw, you need to use the state code with the RULES database identifier. For example, to find the local rules for the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, go to the Michigan Rules database (MI-RULES).

Since the state databases contain the court rules and selected procedural statutes for all state and local federal practice in that state, you will need to narrow your search to the specific court. To do this, use the citation field (ci) as part of your search. To find the court abbreviation for your citation field search, click the green (i) on the search page of the state rules database. Once you obtain the court abbreviation, you can enter it as part of your search. CI(USDCTED) will retrieve all the local rules for the Eastern District of Michigan in the MI-RULES database.

Note: Most of the Federal District Courts have their court rules on their websites. To find the court website, you can use Court Links on U.S. Courts. Once you click on the state where the court is located, a list of the courts with links to their website will be given. A link to the court rules should be available somewhere on the main page.