New Time Calculation and Computation Rules Take Effect

Today’s the day that the new Fla. R. App. P. Rule 9.420, and the new Fla. R. Jud. Admin. 2.514, go into effect. As I noted when the rule change was announced, the new rule doesn’t so much alter as clarify the method for calculating time — most importantly, making much more clear what is or is not a “Legal Holiday” for purposes of time calculation. For a full explanation of (and links to) the rule, be sure to read my analysis here. Because new Fla. R. Jud. Admin. 2.514 applies for all rules of procedure, this one is an important read even if you never do an appeal. Happy calendaring!

Mandatory E-Mail Service — Are you Ready?

The September 1, 2012 deadline for implementing e-mail service is rapidly approaching. The Florida Supreme Court delayed implementation until September 1 to allow the Florida Bar to provide educational materials and get the word out. The Bar is providing a guide on Service by E-mail and E-Filing [.pdf], and it’s a good place to start to develop office procedures.

Get Your Revised Eleventh Circuit Rules Here — Bonus Tip for iPad Users!

The Eleventh Circuit published a new, complete .pdf of its rules effective August 1, 2012. The changes to the Court’s local rules and IOPs are minor, but at least one of them is very interesting: the court has changed the rule to allow folks to purchase CDs of oral argument. The Court also amended the rules to eliminate references to specific dollar amounts for fees, so that it no longer need amend the local rules whenever there is a statutory fee change.

The Eleventh Circuit has always kindly provided a guide for replacing the pages where there are changes in your current copy of the rules, so that practitioners can retain their annotations and only pull out the pages where there are actual changes. If, like me, you’ve switched to using an iPad for most of your research needs, Adobe Acrobat X makes it very simple to do the electronic equivalent of changing out the necessary pages of your notebook. Save the new rules to your computer at an easy to find location, then open your old copy and under TOOLS select “REPLACE”. Adobe will prompt you to select the new file from which you want to take the replacement pages:

Screen Capture of Replace Pages Dialog

In this case, the .pdf page numbers and the listed page numbers align perfectly, so it is very simple to follow the directions on page 2 of the Court’s .pdf and replace, section by section, the necessary pages. And voila! My copy of the rules is up to date, and I didn’t have to give up all of my annotations.