South Dakota research links and information, plus a sampling of North Dakota cases of interest on attorney legal malpractice and ethics, as well as corporate ethics and legal compliance, are noted on separate pages.  See links to those pages which are shown in the left margin.

Scroll down for a feed directly from the North Dakota Supreme Court of brief notes on any North Dakota Supreme Court opinions filed today.

North Dakota Legal Research

Casemaker.  There is no charge for active North Dakota Bar members to use the Casemaker electronic library. The library includes state and federal case law, the North Dakota Code of Laws, ethics advisory opinions, court rules, and North Dakota Lawyer articles.

Users have the ability to view and browse a table of contents for all to statutes, codes, rules, and other materials. Search for a desired document without knowing the citation number or even the official document name.

Access Casemaker through SBAND.

North Dakota Supreme Court. The website of the North Dakota Supreme Court has been named the Best Judicial Website by the North American Association of Law Libraries, and has been named the Best Judicial Branch Site by the Council of State Governments.

Most Recent North Dakota Opinions

North Dakota Rules of Court

The North Dakota Century Code

The North Dakota Century Code on line database. The Century Code is the codification of all general and permanent law enacted since statehood. The table of contents to this on-line version of the Century Code is derived from the listing of titles of the Code.

To copy portions of the Century Code into your word processor: (1) select the text select button (the button with "abc" or "T" on it); (2) highlight the text you want to copy; and (3) select the copy button (the button with two pages on it). This will place the selected text on your clipboard for pasting into your word processing document.

North Dakota Rules of Professional Conduct

The North Dakota Rules of Professional Conduct were substantially amended in 2006.  A summary of the amendments is available.  

In addition to recommending that "consent in writing" be included in a number of the rules, the primary changes include the following:

Revision of Rule 1.6, to expand the circumstances under which lawyers are required or permitted to disclose confidential information to prevent death, substantial bodily harm, or financial loss to others.

Revision of Rule 1.10 to provide that conflicts resulting from a lawyer's personal interests not be imputed to members of the lawyer's firm.

Revision of Rule 1.13, regarding a lawyer's disclosure of confidential information to prevent likely substantial injury to an organizational client;

Adoption of Rule 1.18, to describe lawyers' duties to potential clients;

Revision of Rule 3.3 to specify that, if a lawyer learns that she has offered false testimony of a client, the lawyer may not use that false testimony;

Adoption of Rule 4.5 to guide lawyers who receive inadvertent transmissions of documents;

Revision of Rules 5.1, 5.2, and 5.3 concerning the responsibilities of lawyers who are partners in a law firm or who have comparable managerial authority within a law firm.

Federal District Court for North Dakota

Effective January 1, 2006, the use of Electronic Case Filing (ECF) is required in the district of North Dakota. Attorneys are expected to file papers electronically.  Review the District’s administrative policies governing electronic filing at www.ndd.uscourts.gov/CMECF/CM_ECF-Policy.pdf.   An attorney's initial registration to use ECF must be on an Attorney Registration Form, a copy of which is available on the court’s web page.

Attorneys must ensure that sensitive personal identifiers are redacted or omitted from any document that the user files with the court to which the public would have remote electronic access. These prohibited identifiers include:

Minors’ Names – unless only using only minor’s initials.
Social Security Numbers – unless only using last four digits.
Dates of Birth – unless year of birth only is used.
Financial Account Numbers – unless only last four digits are used.
Home Addresses – unless only city and state are used

SBAND website
->click on the "Resources for Lawyers" and then on "Ethics Opinions" , where

->click on the pattern jury instructions, which includes cross references to cases cited, and (with links!) to the NDCC statutes cited.

In 2006, the U.S. Judicial Conference set new compensation rates for Criminal Justice Act (CJA) appointed attorneys. The rate set was $92.00 per hour, in and out of court.  The amounts paid for criminal justice act appointments probably represent the lowest hourly rate that can be paid a lawyer to produce average quality work.

The North Dakota Supreme Court has adopted the "universal citation system" for identifying and citing their written opinions written after the adoption of this system. This system identifies the opinion by the year, the court, and the sequential number of the opinion during the year. E.g., Myer v. Rygg, 2001 ND 123

North Dakota Ethics Opinions are here.

North Dakota Law School main page

ND Secretary of State's office has the corporate filings in the state available on the web.