Guidebooks for Representing Yourself in Supreme Court Civil MattersDrafting Orders • Drafting OrdersAn order needs to be prepared when the court hearing is complete (after a hearing in chambers or a trial) and the court has made an order. The order is the document, filed in the court registry, which sets out the decision of the judge or master. The parties, not the judge, are usually responsible for preparing the order. Any party can prepare the order, but usually it is the successful party. Rule 13-1 sets out important information about court orders. You can find more information about drafting court orders, as well as examples, in two books located in the courthouse library: Supreme Court Chambers Orders, published by the Continuing Legal Education Society of BC, and The Conduct of Civil Litigation in British Columbia, by Fraser, Horn, and Griffin.Types of orders Before you start a lawsuit, you should have a clear idea of what, exactly, you will be asking the court to order. In general, you will be asking the court to order someone to do (or stop doing) something. You should have the terms of your draft order in mind right from the start. The most common types of orders are: orders made after an application to the court, before trial (a chambers application);orders made after a trial; andconsent orders, where the parties agree on the terms of the order without actually having to appear before a judge or master of the court;Orders after court applications You may make an application to court to ask for an order to resolve issues that come up before the trialof your case. These kinds of applications are generally called “chambers proceedings” and they do not result in a final decision of your case. For example, you might want to make an application in chambers to get an order for the other party to produce certain documents for you to inspect. The guidebook, Applications to Court, provides detailed information about these types of applications.When the judge or master makes a decision on your application, the decision has to be set out in writing. The parties, not the judge or master, are responsible for preparing the written order and getting it signed by the judge or master, as well as by the parties who appeared at the hearing. You can do this in one of three ways:•••This Guidebook provides general information about civil, non-family claims in the Supreme Court of BC. It does not explain the law. Legal advice must come from a lawyer, who can tell you why you should do something in your lawsuit or whether you should take certain actions. Anyone else, such as court registry staff, non-lawyer advocates, other helpers, and this guidebook can only give you legal information about how to do something, such as following certain court procedures.Standards are in effect for the filing of all Supreme Court civil and Supreme Court family documents, except divorce and probate. When you submit your completed documents, registry staff will check to make sure they meet the minimum standards before accepting them for filing. It is your responsibility to include all other information required by the court and ensure it is correct.For information about how to get help with your case, see the last page of this document.
Guidebooks for Representing Yourself in Supreme Court Civil Matters• Drafting OrdersYou can prepare a draft order (Form 35) before the hearing, setting out the terms of the order that you are asking the court to make. If you are successful in your application to court, you can ask the judge or master who heard the application to sign the order. The court clerk will hand up the order to the judge or master and, if it is accurate, the judge or master will sign it at that time. In these situations, you don’t need to get the other parties to sign your draft order (see Rule 13-1(2)).If you don’t have a draft order in Form 35, but the court orders what you were asking for in your application, show the judge or master where your application asks for that order. In some cases the judge or master may initial your application (Rule 13-1(4)). You can file that initialled document in the court registry and it has the same effect as a formal court order. This saves you the steps of drafting the order and getting signatures from the other parties.If the judge or master does not sign the order in chambers, one of the parties must draft the order (Form 35). Any party can draft the order. Usually the party who won the application will draft the order, but if one party has a lawyer, that lawyer might agree to draft the order. In some cases the court might rely on Rule 13-1(15) and ask the registry to draft the order.As a final step, you file the signed order in the court registry.Orders after trialAfter trial, one of the parties (usually the party who won) will draft the order for the judge to sign. These orders are drafted using Form 48 and it records what the judge decided in your case. 1.2.3.Consent ordersParties sometimes agree on an outcome to the dispute without going to court. In some cases you will want an order from the court even though you have agreed on the terms of the order. In such cases, you file a requisition (Form 17) and a draft of the order that you are asking the court to approve. This draft order is in Form 34. More information is set out in Rule 13-1(10).If there is a problem with your order, the registry might ask you to redraft your order or to appear in court and explain your case. If your order is approved, the registry will return it to you, stamped and ready to be enforced.A consent order is not complete until each party affected by the order indicates his or her consent. If a party is represented by a lawyer, the lawyer can sign the consent order. If a party is not represented by a lawyer, the litigant can consent in writing, or orally at the court hearing.Other orders You may need to prepare other orders, and they are described in other guidebooks:An order for costs and an order to settle a bill of costs are described in the guidebook, Costs in the Supreme Court. A default judgment, given when the other party does not respond to your notice of civil claim, is described in the guidebook, Resolving Your Case Before Trial.You may want to get an order from a court in another jurisdiction (e.g., other parts of Canada or another country) registered in a BC court so you can enforce the order. In such cases, you need to use Form 77. Rule 19-3 and the Court Order Enforcement Act give you information about foreign judgments. Dealing with foreign jurisdictions is complicated and you should seek assistance from a lawyer. You may also need to consult a lawyer in the foreign jurisdiction. •••