Proposed Fed. Cir. Rule Changes

Law360 reports on proposed changes to the rules of the Federal Circuit, some of which are pretty interesting: "The appeals court unveiled the proposed changes to dozens of rules on Friday, posting a redlined version of the amendments that runs nearly 200 pages. While many of the changes are simply stylistic or codify existing practice, others will have a meaningful practical impact"

• Under the proposed new rules, filings that contain redacted information will have to include in place of the redaction an "adequate, general descriptor of the material" that has been blacked out, a change that will make filings more readable while creating some extra work for attorneys.
• The proposed rules include a new requirement that parties who want to discuss a new case during oral argument that wasn't previously discussed in the briefs "should provide a copy of the new authority to the opposing party in advance of argument."
• The proposal includes a new rule intended to prevent parties from using the greater word count that is available for briefs in cases involving a cross-appeal to hammer home their own appellate arguments, instead of responding to the other side.

The proposed rules state that "parties may not file entirely duplicative briefs in related cases" and that "if a portion of a brief is duplicative of a portion of a brief in a related case, the filing party must so advise the court" at the beginning of the relevant section of the brief.

The proposed rules state that parties can now cite nonprecedential decisions from any time, discarding a previous rule that only allowed citations to nonprecedential decisions from 2007 or after.

Limiting the number of arguing attorneys: The proposed rules state that without leave from the court, "no more than two counsel may argue on behalf of each side and no more than one counsel may argue on behalf of each party."

The proposed rules also create a new phone number and email address to use when parties need to contact the court about making emergency filings outside of normal business hours.