News and analysis on federal and state court rules.
If you miss the deadline to file a notice of appeal, the appellate court has no jurisdiction to hear your case. That's not a technicality you can paper over with a good brief or a sympathetic panel. Rule 4 of the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure governs when that notice must
Read more →If you're handling a sexual assault case involving a young child in Michigan state court, MRE 803A is one of the most practically significant evidentiary rules you'll encounter. There's no federal counterpart. The Federal Rules of Evidence don't have a dedicated child hearsay exc
Read more →If you practice in federal court and you're suddenly dealing with a Michigan state court matter, or you're advising a client who's gotten a motion under MCR 2.116, the first thing you'll notice is that this rule looks familiar but works differently than you expect. Ten grounds, a
Read more →Rule 16 is the starting point for criminal discovery, but it is not the whole picture. Practitioners who treat it as the complete framework end up missing Brady material, underestimating reciprocal obligations, or both. Here is how the rule actually works in practice, where it st
Read more →Getting leave to amend sounds simple. The rule says courts should "freely give" it. In practice, there's a lot more going on, and the mistakes practitioners make with Rule 15 tend to cluster around three things: waiting too long, misunderstanding what "futility" actually means in
Read more →Rule 403 is one of those rules that lawyers invoke constantly and win on rarely. If you've ever watched a judge deny a 403 objection that you were convinced should have been sustained, you weren't misreading the room. The rule is deliberately tilted toward admission, and most cou
Read more →Most defendants know Rule 68 exists. Far fewer actually use it. That's a mistake, because a well-timed offer of judgment is one of the few procedural mechanisms that can genuinely shift litigation economics in your favor, and it costs you nothing to serve one.
Read more →If you've taken more than a handful of depositions, you've probably sat across the table from someone who treats obstruction as a litigation strategy. Long speaking objections that telegraph the "right" answer, instructions not to answer questions that have nothing to do with pri
Read more →The Supreme Court's April 8, 2026 order amends eight Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure and adds a new Rule 7043, all effective December 1. The headline is a restructured testimony framework for adversary proceedings and contested matters, with explicit authority for remote witness transmission. Plan acceptance can now travel on the record at confirmation, Form 410A is squarely in Rule 3001, and the financial-management course notice sequence has firm deadlines. What's actually going to change in your practice.
Read more →Most hearsay objections in federal court aren't really about hearsay. They're about whether the statement fits one of the exclusions, whether it was offered for the truth, or whether the lawyer objecting has actually thought through what the rule says. Rule 801 is the foundation,
Read more →The predominance requirement under Rule 23b3 has always been the hardest certification hurdle to clear in complex commercial cases. Then came Comcast Corp. v. Behrend, 569 U.S. 27 2013https://www.courtlistener.com/?q=Comcast+Corp+v+Behrend+569+U.S.+27&type=o, and suddenly defense
Read more →Summary judgment is where most federal civil cases actually get decided, and yet practitioners consistently make the same structural mistakes in their briefs that give courts reasons to deny motions that should win. This post breaks down how Rule 56 works in practice, what the Ce
Read more →Settlement talks are one of those areas where lawyers routinely overestimate the protection they're getting. Rule 408 is genuinely useful, but it's not the blanket shield many practitioners treat it as, and the gaps can hurt you badly if you don't know where they are.
Read more →Rule 37 is one of those rules you hope you never need to use aggressively, but when opposing counsel goes dark on discovery or your client's ESI gets wiped, knowing how courts actually apply sanctions can be the difference between winning and watching your case collapse. The rule
Read more →The Rule 26f conference gets treated like a formality by a lot of practitioners, especially in cases where the parties haven't fully engaged with the facts yet. That's a mistake. What gets agreed to or fought over in that conference shapes the scheduling order, and the scheduling
Read more →Non-party subpoenas are one of the most powerful tools in federal litigation, and one of the most commonly botched. You're reaching outside the case to compel someone who owes you nothing, before a court that may not know your case at all. Getting the mechanics wrong can mean a d
Read more →The list in Rule 404b2 looks reassuring at first glance. Motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, identity, absence of mistake, lack of accident. Courts and practitioners treat it like a menu: pick one, serve it up, and the evidence comes in. The reality is more
Read more →Getting injunctive relief in federal court is one of the harder things you'll do as a litigator. Not because the standard is mysterious, but because most lawyers underestimate how much work goes into a winning motion before they file it. This post walks through the mechanics of R
Read more →Class certification under Rule 23 is where most class actions actually live or die. The merits barely matter at this stage. What matters is whether the plaintiff can satisfy a checklist of structural requirements that courts have spent decades arguing about. If you're on the plai
Read more →Rule 11 is one of those provisions that attorneys either overuse as a litigation weapon or ignore until they're suddenly on the receiving end of a motion. Neither approach serves you well. Understanding how the rule actually operates, especially the safe harbor mechanism, will sa
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