Court Rules: Practitioners and student attorneys should be aware of the procedural rules that apply in a given situation, whether it's the Massachusetts Rules of Criminal Procedure, the Massachusetts Rules of Appellate Procedure, the standing orders of a particular judge, the local rules of the SJC or Appeals Court, or some combination thereof.
A list of Massachusetts Court Rules is provided by the Mass Trial Court Law Libraries. Annotated versions are available on Westlaw and Lexis, where court rules are found with statutes.
Statutes: Statutes passed by the legislature can also lay out procedural requirements as well as define substantive crimes. Secondary sources can lead you to relevant statutory provisions, or you can search the free MA statutory code or an annotated version on Westlaw or Lexis (these will provide leads to interpretive cases and secondary sources).
To learn more about statutes, visit our research guide on Statutory Research.
