Third DCA Becomes Third DCA to Allow Stipulated Enlargements

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Following the trend started by the Fourth District Court of Appeal and Fifth District Court of Appeal, Florida’s Third District Court of Appeal yesterday issued an administrative order [.pdf] that, effective immediately, allows parties to stipulate to enlargements of time to serve briefs, rather than seek leave of court. Importantly, the procedure does not apply to writs, expedited or emergency matters, nor adoptions, dependency or termination of parental rights cases. The parties by stipulation can agree to an aggregate of 120 days’ worth of enlargments for initial and answer briefs, and 60 days for reply briefs.

 

UPDATE:  The Third District in 2015 changed the extension time for reply briefs from 60 to 30 [.pdf].

Oral Argument Via FaceTime

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I’ve written before about how the judges on the Second District Court of Appeal have pretty thoroughly incorporated the use of iPads into their decision making process. But this week, that integration hit a higher level. A colleague reported to me that this week, one of the judges on the Second District Court of Appeal was ill for his scheduled Oral Argument panel at the Tampa courtroom, so the Judge participated from home via FaceTime on his iPad. An iPad was set up in the judge’s place on the bench, and the judge presumably used either his iPad or computer with webcam at home to have his face on the screen. My colleague reported that the judge did not have any questions during his oral argument presentation, but did ask a question remotely for one of the attorneys on another case.

This seems like an elegant solution to the problem. After all of the time the judge had no doubt put into preparing for argument, it would have been a shame to miss it, or leave the panel short. After all of the time the parties had put into preparing for this panel, it would have been a waste of both party and judicial resources to re-schedule the argument and force everyone to come back up to speed at a later date. This way, the germs stayed home, the judge didn’t have to drag himself to Tampa, and yet the show could go on.

The future is now.

Eleventh Circuit Makes ECF Mandatory

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In an order issued last week [GO 38 .pdf], the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit announced it will be making the switch to electronic filing effective April 1, 2013. If you haven’t already done so, be sure to register for Appellate CM/ECF before that date! Be sure to check out the Court’s guide to electronic filing, found here [.pdf].