eFiling in the 11th Circuit Starts in 2012

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eFiling is coming in the Eleventh Circuit, but it won’t be saving as many trees as you would think. The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals will begin allowing voluntary e-filing of briefs and other appeal documents in pending appeals starting January 1, 2011. The Court’s General Order 37 [.pdf] adopts the Eleventh Circuit Guide to Voluntary Electronic Filing, otherwise known as “the Guide.” As in many district court’s ECF rules, use of the login is considered the attorney’s signature on the document “for all purposes”.

One interesting note — the Court requests that .pdfs filed via ECF, whenever possible, “be in Text-Searchable PDF and not created by scanning.” ¶ 4.2. Even if this weren’t the rule, it’s a very good idea, because consider that the documents you file via .pdf are more and more likely to be read by judges and their clerks in electronic form. Help those decision makers help you by making it easy for them to search and annotate your submissions. (I won’t dwell on the irony of the document at that link being a scanned version of the rules).

The Guide does not allow for pro se parties to file electronically, though those filings, too, are to be scanned into the ECF system. ¶ 4.6. Interestingly, the Court will discard originals once scanned unless there is an issue with the quality of the scan. ¶ 5.4.

The Court handles the issue of when a document is filed by holding that the date of the system-generated Notice of Docket Activity (NDA) is the governing time. Electronic filing also includes electronic serving, and if other attorneys on the case are on ECF, they will be served automatically. For appeals, special care will need to be taken to confirm who is getting paper and who is being electronically served, and to ensure compliance with FRAP 25 regarding the certificate of service.

However, appeal participants will still have to serve 7 hard copies of the briefs on the Court, sent the day the brief is electronically filed. ¶ 10.2. And attorneys will still have to take care to ensure that they follow the rules regarding preparing record excerpts.

If you haven’t already registered for appellate ECF, the Court’s instructions for doing so are here [.pdf].

Jordan Approved by Senate Executive Committee Meeting

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The nomination of Judge Adalberto J. Jordán to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals continues to move through the Senate. On October 13, 2011, the Executive Committee of the Senate Judiciary Committee met to discuss judicial nominations. The committee moved the consideration of Judge Jordán and a few other nominees en banc, and by vocal consent the Committee agreed to report all of the judges to the Senate Floor. Senator Jeff Sessions called out Judge Jordán’s qualifications (before speaking against one of the other nominees). The portion of the committee hearing discussing the nominations is found at 32:33-40:43.

After being nominated in August and questioned by the committee in September, these nominations are just breezing through the process.

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In talking about his new memoir, Five Chiefs, Justice Stevens gave the New York Times a great quote. It seems that after decades on the highest Court, Stevens is not inclined to sit by designation:

“I kind of like not having to read a lot of briefs and get reversed by my former colleagues.”

I think you are entitled to not have to read a lot of briefs and get reversed, Justice Stevens. By the way, the memoir sounds fascinating — the premise is his discussion of five Supreme Court chief justices he has worked with and known, as a law clerk, lawyer, judge and justice. Check it out.