The form or mode of proceeding in courts of justice for the enforcement of rights or the redress of wrongs, as distinguished from the substantive law which gives the right or deuouuces the wrong. The form, mauuer, or order of instituting and conducting a suit or other judicial proceeding , through its successive stages to its end, iu accordance with the rules and principles laid down by law or by the regulations and precedents of the courts. The term applies as well to the conduct of criminal actions as to civil suits, to proceedings iu equity as well as at law, and to the defense as well as the prosecution of any proceeding. See Fieischuiau v. Walker, 91 111. 321 ; People v. Central Pac. It. Co., S3 Cal. 393, 23 Pac. 303; Kring v. Missouri, 107 U. S. 221, 2 Sup. Ct. 443, 27 L. Ed. 500; Opp v. Ten Eyck, 99 Ind. 301; Beardsley v. Littell, 14 Blatchf. 102, Fed. Cas. No. 1,153; Union Nat. Bank v. Byram, 131 111. 92, 22 N. E. 842. It may include pleading, but is usually employed as excluding both pleading and evidence, and to designate all the incidental ads aud stens iu the course of bringing matters pleaded lo trial aud proof, and procuring and enforcing judgment on them.
Black’s Law Online Dictionary
