Finding Court Forms and Precedents

Precedents are samples of common legal documents. These include legal agreements, court pleadings, court forms, and many other types of documents. It is always in your best interest to use a sample from the jurisdiction you are filing in, if the form you are looking for is not available in the correct jurisdiction, you can look at other jurisdictions for guidance. However be aware that you must follow the format laid out by the court you are filing in.

Forms and Precedents can be found in many places:

• Legislation and regulations
• Courts’ website
• Textbooks
• Legal Education Society of Alberta Seminar materials (LESA) in our library collection or through the LESA Library.
• or by doing a [Keyword advanced] search of our catalogue for one of these terms: forms, precedents and the subject matter you are looking for. IE forms and bankruptcy. Note that the question mark character represents truncation. e.g. contract? precedent?

Use this guide to help you locate sources for forms and precedents either online or in the library.

Finding & Filling Court Forms

For members of the public

Finding the correct court forms and completing them accurately can be a challenge. This guide will assist you.

• What court forms do I need?
• Where can I find the forms?
• How do I fill them out?
• What do I do next?
• How to serve your filed documents

What court forms do I need?

To determine what court forms you need you must first determine which court level will deal with your matter.

Each court deals with different matters. If you have already filed documents in this action, look at the top of the previous filed court documents to find the court level. Visit the Courts’ websites for more information.

• Alberta Court of Justice – deals with criminal, traffic, civil claim (up to $100,000), family (but not divorce), initial applications for emergency protection orders and child welfare files.
• Court of King’s Bench – deals with bankruptcy, divorce, matrimonial/family property, family law, restraining orders/protection orders, civil claims (over $100,000), dependent adults as well as appeals from the Alberta Court of Justice.
• Court of Appeal – deals with cases that are being appealed primarily from the Court of King’s Bench.

Where can I find the forms?

• Resolution Support Centres operate in Edmonton, Calgary, Lethbridge, Medicine Hat, Red Deer and Grande Prairie. They are not able to help you complete the forms but they are an excellent source to help you find the forms you need to use. You can also look at the court level and the type of matter you need to file. Forms can be found on the Courts’ website.
• Alberta Court of Justice Find the link to Practice Directions and Forms at the top of the page. Select your Area of Law: Criminal, Civil, Traffic or Family & Youth to open the list of forms.
• Court of King’s Bench – under areas of law select the type of matter (criminal, civil etc.) and select the drop down for Forms.
  • Criminal
  • Civil
  • Family Law Forms
    • Word version of Family Law Forms (allows for more customization)
    • The Divorce Judgment form must be filled out online, handwritten copies will be not be accepted.
    • Filing Fees and Forms

    Estate Forms

    Surrogate Forms for non-contentious matters (not likely to cause an argument), are at Grants of Probate and Grants of Administration (GA Forms) and Minors’ Property Act Applications (MP Forms), including

    • probate
    • administration of a deceased’s estate
    • trusteeship of minor’s property

    Surrogate Forms for contentious matters and accounting can be purchased at Alberta’s King’s Printer Surrogate Rules and Forms Package – a User’s Guide for Grant Applications, or you can come down to your local Alberta Law Libraries location. You can also access them online through this URL : https://kings-printer.alberta.ca/form/C01.pdf. This will provide you contentious form C01 for all other forms in this series change the “C01” in the url to the appropriate “C#”.

    The Office of the Public Guardian and Trustee has forms for these and other related matters:

    • guardianship
    • trusteeship
    • personal directive

    How do I fill them out?

    Need help with terminology used on the forms?

    • Alberta Court of Justice – Civil Claims Glossary
    • Canadian Online Legal Dictionary
    • Emond Glossary of Legal Terms

    To reference legislation use: CanLII. Filter your search by selecting the jurisdiction (e.g. Alberta).

    Troubleshooting forms

    Having problems opening the form?

    Some options for PDF forms:

    • Try right-clicking on the link or download button and choosing “Save Link As…” and then opening the file from your computer.
    • Try clicking the pdf icon in the address bar and selecting open in Adobe Viewer (Adobe Reader DC is recommended.)
    • From the error screen that says “Please Wait…” select download at the top right of the screen
    • Try opening the forms in Firefox.

    Still can’t open the PDF versions for some of the forms? Need to modify/change part of the form?

    The Court of King’s Bench has some Microsoft Word forms available. Look in the navigation menu for Microsoft word forms for lawyers. Anyone may use these forms. Forms in Microsoft Word allow for more customization.

    What do I do next?

    If you want a digital copy of your completed document, ensure you save a copy before closing the courts webpage. If you are not on your own computer, email a copy of the document to yourself or save on a flash drive.

    Determine how you need to submit the document; is it an urgent matter that needs to be submitted by email or do you need to print off copies and file it at the counter?

    The number of copies you need will vary depending on the document. You may wish to file the document at the counter before making copies, to confirm that the document is correct and to find out the number of copies you need.

    You are now ready to take the documents to the appropriate counter for filing or send the document off by email.

    Court Fees

    • Filing Fees
    • Waiving a Filing Fee

    How to serve your filed documents

    Depending on the form you are filing you may need to serve the other party with a copy. If you have multiple parties listed on your document all parties must be served.

    In most cases you can personally serve the document, have a friend serve the document, or hire a process server.

    Service is generally done in person, but if that is impossible, you may be able to ask for a Substitutional Service Order which would allow you to serve by email, registered mail or to another person closely connected to the person you want to serve. Contact the Court to find out how to do this.

    If you are serving the document by email, ensure you have proof of service by scanning the document to your personal email first and then forwarding it on to the individual(s) you need to serve.

    After this is completed you must file an Affidavit of Service with the courts to swear to the fact that the document has been served. Follow the procedure for locating forms on this guide to find an Affidavit of Service.

    If someone else serves the document for you they must fill out the Affidavit of Service and have it commissioned by the courthouse staff or information coordinators. They will need to bring picture ID with them when they do this.

    If you served by mail, email or fax, you will need to show proof of service. To do this you will need a printout of the Canada Post tracking information, a printout from your sent email or a fax receipt.

    • Serving court documents
    • What is an Affidavit

    Last revised March 20, 2024

    Provincial

    • Court of Appeal
    • Court of King’s Bench- Civil
    • Court of King’s Bench – Criminal
    • Court of King’s Bench – Family
    • Court of King’s Bench – Divorce Forms and instructions
    • Alberta Court of Justice – Criminal
    • Alberta Court of Justice – Family
    • Alberta Court of Justice – Small Claims Court and Residential Tenancies
    • Alberta Court of Justice – Traffic
    • Family Law Kits
    • Surrogate Forms – non-contentious matters
    • Waiving a Filing Fee
    • Appeals and Transcripts

    Last revised Apr. 11, 2024