Procedural law is the legal rules governing practice and procedure of the courts, processes of examination, evidence, investigation and conduct of public officials. Procedural law originates in common law, and court judgments based on equity, natural justice and statute. Federal law includes a robust body “procedural common law,” common law primarily concerned with the regulation of internal court processes rather than substantive rights and obligations. procedural law can function as either a complement to or a substitute for rules of substantive law, or both simultaneously.
The economic analysis of procedural law can not be separated entirely from the underlying substantive policy. Federal law includes a robust body of what might be called “procedural common law,” that is common law primarily concerned with the regulation of internal court processes rather than substantive rights and obligations.
A Theory of Procedural Common Law - Amy
Coney Barrett.
Debates about the common lawmaking power of the federal courts focus exclusively on
substantive common law. But federal common law is not limited to matters of substance; it
reaches matters of procedure as well. Procedural common law includes many doctrines that are fixtures in the law of procedure and
federal courts. For example, abstention, forum non conveniens, remittitur, stare decisis,
and preclusion can all fairly be characterized as procedural common law.
Procedure in American and European Law: A General Economic Analysis - Jeffrey Parker. This paper seeks to develop a general view on the economic analysis of procedural law, with particular emphasis on comparing institutional differences between American and continental European legal systems. Further consequences are that procedural rules can not be studied solely in terms of the conventional "expected value" model of litigation, or solely in terms of the conventional legal desiderata of "just, speedy, and inexpensive" adjudication. In the economic analysis, it is the combination of both substantive and procedural rules that determine the ultimate efficiency properties of a legal system.