A civil action is a lawsuit that involves money, injury or damages, return of property, civil rights, or other non-criminal matters. Criminal matters have a tendency to take precedent more than civil matters, so you can typically be waiting awhile. The Supreme Court Civil Rules also call for a pre-trial conference to make confident that the parties are prepared to proceed and at the conference Judge can make orders as to how the trial will be performed. In a handful of jurisdictions (notably, the U.S. state of New York ) a lawsuit begins when 1 or much more plaintiffs adequately serve a summons and complaint upon the defendant(s).

For most civil lawsuits, a defendant normally has either twenty (20) or thirty (30) days to file a response with the court, on the other hand some situations have quite short deadlines (for example some eviction lawsuits may possibly have a three … Read the rest >>>