The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has changed two of its procedures so as to rely more heavily on its Appellate ECF system. The Court sent out an e-mail blast on January 1 with the news. The basic changes to the Court’s appellate rules and procedures are highlighted below.

No more telephonic requests for extensions of time.  In place of telephonic requests, parties requesting extensions of time to file briefs can request an extension of 30 days through the Appellate ECF system. The filing type will be titled “File a Streamlined Request to Extend Time to File Brief.” Like the telephonic requests, the streamlined request can only be made if no previous requests for extension have been made, the request must be made on or before the brief’s due date, and any subsequent extension requests must be made by motion.  The Ninth Circuit indicates that these streamlined requests will be “routinely approved.”

Parties must file their excerpts of record electronically starting March 1, 2013.  Parties who can are “strongly encouraged” to submit excerpts electronically starting immediately. Excerpts should be filed electronically on the same day as the brief.  The procedure will mirror the current system for briefs. The court will issue an order directing the filing party to file paper excerpts on the court, but the party need only serve paper copies of the excerpts on other parties to the appeal if they are not registered for Appellate ECF.

Links to the specifics:

Extensions of time http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/content/view.php?pk_id=0000000638

Filing of Excerpts of Record http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/general/2012/12/26/electronic_excerpts_final.pdf.