Series: Virginia Procedural Law

By Rachel Shafer.

In the upcoming weeks, we will be posting a series on the quirks of Virginia procedural law, mostly in state courts but with some mention of federal practice in Virginia. Let’s put it this way–there are a lot of odd things in Virginia civil practice, and we’ve aimed to cover the most salient ones!  Topics will include civil appeals, summary judgment, and declaratory judgment, as well as items specific to the various state and federal courts in Virginia.  Hopefully this mini-series will answer some questions behind the how and why of what is or can be done procedurally in civil litigation in Virginia. Just a few specific questions we will try to answer in this series of posts:

• Why do we consider Virginia’s General District Court the “Wild, Wild West”?
• Why is summary judgment such a rarity in Virginia state courts?
• Why don’t civil appeals in Virginia’s trial courts occur more often?
• What’s so extreme about the United States Court for the Eastern District of Virginia?

We hope you’ll join us for the ride through the backwoods of procedural law in Virginia!