Use when drafting any Ohio court filing — applies Ohio Civ. R. 10 caption + signature requirements, the common local-rule format conventions adopted by most Ohio Common Pleas and Municipal Courts (Letter paper; 1-inch margins with 1.5-inch top on first page for caption; 12-point minimum body font; double-spaced body), the Ohio public- domain citation format `YYYY-Ohio-NNNN` mandatory in appellate cases since 2002, and the affidavit-vs- declaration terminology distinction (Ohio uses "affidavit" under R.C. 2319.04 + Civ. R. 56; "declaration under penalty of perjury" is federal practice). Triggers include "Ohio court filing format", "Ohio Civ. R. 10", "Ohio caption", "Ohio attorney registration number", "Ohio public-domain citation", "Ohio affidavit format", "first page caption Ohio", "Common Pleas local rules format".
Ohio Statewide Format — Civ. R. 10 + Per-Court Local Rules
description
Use when drafting any Ohio court filing — applies Ohio Civ. R. 10 caption + signature requirements, the common local-rule format conventions adopted by most Ohio Common Pleas and Municipal Courts (Letter paper; 1-inch margins with 1.5-inch top on first page for caption; 12-point minimum body font; double-spaced body), the Ohio public- domain citation format `YYYY-Ohio-NNNN` mandatory in appellate cases since 2002, and the affidavit-vs- declaration terminology distinction (Ohio uses "affidavit" under R.C. 2319.04 + Civ. R. 56; "declaration under penalty of perjury" is federal practice). Triggers include "Ohio court filing format", "Ohio Civ. R. 10", "Ohio caption", "Ohio attorney registration number", "Ohio public-domain citation", "Ohio affidavit format", "first page caption Ohio", "Common Pleas local rules format".
Ohio Statewide Format — Civ. R. 10 + Per-Court Local Rules
NOT LEGAL ADVICE. Verify the specific court's local
rules before every filing. Format compliance varies
materially between Common Pleas, Municipal, County, and
Court of Claims venues.
At a glance
Ohio has no single statewide pleading-format rule
analogous to a uniform civil-rules code that dictates
formatting across all courts. Format requirements live
across three layers:
Ohio Civ. R. 10 — caption + signature block + form
of pleadings (statewide minimum)
Ohio Rules of Superintendence (Sup. R. — most
relevant: Sup. R. 26 on records and Sup. R. 44-47 on
case-management standards)
Per-court local rules — each Common Pleas court
publishes its own Loc. R. with page limits, certificate-
of-service requirements, working-copy conventions, etc.
This skill enforces the common-denominator baseline. Always
cross-reference the assigned court's local rules.
Caption format (Civ. R. 10(A))
Every pleading caption must include:
Court name in full: IN THE COURT OF COMMON PLEAS OF CUYAHOGA COUNTY, OHIO (or the applicable court)
Case number — Common Pleas case numbers typically
follow CVNNNNNN (general civil), DRNNNNNN (domestic
relations), or court-specific patterns
Parties — <Plaintiff Name> / vs. / <Defendant Name> (Ohio uses vs. with periods)
Title of the document — e.g., DEFENDANT'S ANSWER,
MOTION TO DISMISS, NOTICE OF HEARING
The first-page caption block typically occupies the top
1.5 inches; body text begins below.
Paper format (statewide common denominator)
Paper: Letter (8.5 x 11 inches)
Margins: 1.5-inch top on first page (caption block);
1-inch top on subsequent pages; 1-inch sides + bottom
Font: 12-point minimum (Times New Roman or
comparable serif preferred)
: double-spaced body (most local rules)
Line spacing
Page numbering: footer with page number; some courts
require Page X of Y format
Color: black text on white paper
Line numbering (pleading paper)
Apply continuous line numbering down the left margin of every
generated Ohio pleading. Line numbers count every line of the
body and restart on each page.
Ohio Civ. R. 10 and per-court local rules do not
themselves require line numbering, and an Ohio filing without
it is rule-compliant across Common Pleas, Municipal, and
County courts. But line-numbered pleading paper is universal
practice across the claude-legal marketplace: it lets the
court and opposing counsel cite to an exact location ("page 4,
lines 12–15") and never harms an Ohio filing. Apply it by
default to every motion, memorandum, affidavit, notice of
hearing, and proposed order. Exhibits and attachments are
exempt.
For programmatically generated .docx documents, apply line
numbering through the section's lineNumbers property:
This emits <w:lnNumType w:countBy="1" w:restart="newPage"/>
into the section's <w:sectPr>. The numbers render in the
left margin and do not shift the 1-inch text margin.
Do NOT set start explicitly. An explicit start: 1
renders off by one in LibreOffice (the first body line shows
"2"). Omit start — it defaults to 1 in OOXML.
Margin rule (double vertical line)
Draw a double vertical rule — two thin parallel lines
(~0.75 pt each, with a ~7 pt gap between them) — down the left
margin between the line numbers and the body text. It is the
standard companion to line-numbered pleading paper. Like line
numbering, Ohio Civ. R. 10 and per-court local rules do
not require it, but it is universal convention across the
claude-legal marketplace. Apply it by default to every
line-numbered pleading; exhibits and attachments are exempt.
Implement it as two independent full-height line shapes
anchored in the page header, so they repeat on every page —
not as an OOXML double page border, whose style couples
the inter-line gap to the line weight (widening the gap
thickens both lines into heavy bars).
Draw each line as a thin filled rectangle (VML v:rect).
One shape per <w:pict> — multiple <v:rect> elements in
a single <w:pict> will not all render; each rectangle needs
its own <w:pict> inside its own <w:r> run.
docx-js has no first-class API for header-anchored VML
shapes. Add them with the docx skill's unpack → edit → pack
workflow: generate the file with docx-js (give each section an
empty Header so a word/header1.xml part exists, and keep the
lineNumbers section property from above), then rewrite the
header XML and repack:
python scripts/office/unpack.py out.docx unpacked/
# ... inject the rule into unpacked/word/header*.xml (helper below) ...
python scripts/office/pack.py unpacked/ out.docx --original out.docx
Inside each unpacked/word/header*.xml, declare the VML namespace
on the root <w:hdr> and add the two runs — one v:rect per
<w:pict> per <w:r> — inside the header paragraph. A document
can have several header parts (first-page / even / default, or one
per section); add the runs to each distinct word/header*.xml,
giving every v:rect a unique id. This stdlib helper (no
python-docx) does it and is idempotent:
import pathlib, re
def_runs(i):
outer = ('<w:r><w:pict><v:rect id="VRuleOuter%d" ''style="position:absolute;margin-left:60pt;margin-top:21.6pt;''width:0.75pt;height:748.8pt;''mso-position-horizontal-relative:page;''mso-position-vertical-relative:page;z-index:-251658240" ''fillcolor="black" stroked="f"/></w:pict></w:r>') % i
return outer + (outer.replace('VRuleOuter%d' % i, 'VRuleInner%d' % i)
.replace('margin-left:60pt', 'margin-left:67pt'))
word = pathlib.Path('unpacked/word')
# 1. Double rule: one set of shapes per distinct header part (unique ids).for i, hdr inenumerate(sorted(word.glob('header*.xml'))):
xml = hdr.read_text(encoding='utf-8')
if'VRuleOuter'in xml: # idempotentcontinueif'xmlns:v='notin xml:
xml = re.sub(r'(<w:hdr\b)',
r'\1 xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml"', xml, count=1)
xml = xml.replace('</w:p>', _runs(i) + '</w:p>', 1) # first header para
hdr.write_text(xml, encoding='utf-8')
# 2. Keep line numbers off header/footer text.for f inlist(word.glob('header*.xml')) + list(word.glob('footer*.xml')):
xml = f.read_text(encoding='utf-8')
xml = re.sub(r'(<w:pPr(?:\s[^>]*)?>)(?!<w:suppressLineNumbers/>)',
r'\1<w:suppressLineNumbers/>', xml)
xml = re.sub(r'(<w:p(?:\s[^>]*)?>)(?!<w:pPr)',
r'\1<w:pPr><w:suppressLineNumbers/></w:pPr>', xml)
f.write_text(xml, encoding='utf-8')
The <w:lnNumType> line-numbering element is already emitted by
docx-js's lineNumbers section property (above), so the patch only
touches the header / footer parts.
Geometry (US Letter, 1-inch margins, line-number distance
360 twips = ¼″): body text starts at 72 pt and the line-number
gutter at ~54 pt, so the two rules at margin-left60 pt and
67 pt sit ~7 pt apart, clear of both. The gap is the difference
of the two values; margin-top:21.6pt + height:748.8pt spans the
full page height; width:0.75pt is the line weight.
Verify with python scripts/office/validate.py out.docx then
python scripts/office/soffice.py --headless --convert-to pdf out.docx; confirm two thin parallel lines with a clear gap between
the numbers and the text on every page and that the header /
footer text is not line-numbered. Then open the .docx in
Microsoft Word, where VML renders slightly differently and the
output must still be correct.
Signature block (Civ. R. 11)
Counsel signature must include:
Attorney's name
Ohio Supreme Court attorney registration number
(Atty. Reg. #NNNNNNN — required under Gov. Bar R.
VI(1)(B))
Firm name (if any)
Address + phone + fax + email
Pro se signature must include:
Name + address + phone + email
The designation Pro Se or Self-Represented
Omit attorney registration number (don't fabricate)
Affidavit vs. Declaration terminology
Ohio practice uses affidavit under R.C. 2319.04 for
notarized sworn statements and uses affidavit under
Civ. R. 56(C) for summary-judgment support. The
federal-style "declaration under penalty of perjury"
terminology (28 U.S.C. § 1746) is not Ohio civil
practice. The oh-draft-declaration skill produces Ohio-
correct affidavits despite its scaffolder-conventional
name.
Citation format (Ohio public-domain citation)
Ohio adopted a public-domain citation system in 2002 —
YYYY-Ohio-NNNN format is mandatory in appellate
cases. Examples:
Smith v. Jones, 100 Ohio St.3d 543, 2003-Ohio-1234,
paragraph 12
State v. Brown, 2018-Ohio-5678 (10th Dist.)
Trial-court citations follow the reporter's conventions:
Ohio Supreme Court: Ohio St.3d
Ohio Court of Appeals: Ohio App.3d
Trial court: Ohio Misc.2d
For statutory citations:
R.C. 1345.01 (preferred) or Ohio Rev. Code Ann. § 1345.01
Ohio Civ. R.: Civ. R. 10(A) (no Ohio prefix in
in-state filings)
Ohio Evid. R.: Evid. R. 803(6)
Common per-court local-rule variations
These vary materially by court. Verify before filing:
Page limits on briefs — many Common Pleas courts cap
motion briefs at 15-25 pages; some impose 30
Working copies — some judges require courtesy paper
copies; others rely on electronic filing only
Certificate of service — format and signature
requirements vary; verify Loc. R.
Proposed orders — some courts require a Word version
emailed to chambers; others require a tendered paper
original
Composition with other oh- skills
oh-quality-check — runs pre-filing format + content QC
oh-cuya / oh-frank / etc. — flagship Common Pleas
local-rule overlays
oh-county-courts — long-tail roll-up
oh-municipal-courts — Municipal Court format
conventions
