While, according to Tennyson, in Spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to love, apparently in summer, an appellate judge's fancy turns to changing its procedural rules. My last entry reported on the proposed changes to the Maine Rules of Appellate Procedure. The First Circuit has proposed rule changes to introduce ECF – e-filing – starting in October. Comments are due July 17. http://www.ca1.uscourts.gov/whatsnew.htm.
I am on the Advisory Committee for the First Circuit local rules, so if you'd rather share your comments with me instead of directly to the Court, please do so, view a comment here or email me. The proposed process is very similar to how ECF is done now in other circuits, but each circuit has tweaked its rules individually to some extent, so if you see some useful tweaking — or even a big question or issue — let me know.
