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].
Today’s the day that the Fifth District Court of Appeal’s Administrative Order allowing stipulated enlargements of time go into effect. The Fifth joins the Fourth District Court of Appeal in allowing parties to agree to an enlargement, and then sign a Notice of Enlargement informing the court of the agreement. The Notice need not be signed by both parties, though it must be agreed to by both sides. Be very careful with your calendaring — the Fifth and Fourth have different tolerance levels for the number of days that will be allowed to be extended by stipulation before requiring a motion. I wouldn’t be surprised if the other District Courts of Appeal follow suit soon to take these tedious but necessary motions off of the court’s plate.
Following the trend started by the Fourth District Court of Appeal, the Fifth District Court of Appeal recently decided to take motions for enlargement of time off of the plate of both the judges and court staff by issuing an administrative order [.pdf] allowing parties to instead stipulate to an agreed enlargement of time. Effective March 1, 2013, parties can agree to up to 90 days worth of enlargements for initial and answer briefs, and up to 60 days for a reply brief, by merely filing a stipulation. Notably, this is less time than the Fourth DCA allows before requiring a motion. The Court has a preferred form for the stipulation, so be sure to follow the language of the order. The procedure goes into effect starting March 1, 2013.
Enlargements beyond those deadlines will still require leave of court. And my guess would be that the Court will not be happy to see an enlargement of time motion come across its desk after 90 days.