Rule 86 Effective date.

This rule explains when the new court procedures start being used. The rules became active six months after the Alabama Supreme Court approved them. Once that happens, every new case filed must follow these rules.

The rules also apply to cases that were already in progress when the rules took effect. There is one exception. If a judge believes using the new rules on an existing case would be unfair or hard to carry out, the judge can let the old rules apply instead for that case.

There is also a special note for district courts. For those courts, the rules took effect on January 16, 1977.