Rule 7.1 Disclosure Statement

If you're a company or organization involved in a lawsuit (not an individual person), you have to tell the court about your ownership structure. Specifically, you need to name any parent company you have and any publicly traded company that owns 10% or more of your stock or ownership. If no company fits this description, you just state that.

This information has to be filed the first time you show up in the case, whether that's through a motion, response, or any other formal request to the court. If your ownership situation changes later on, you need to file an updated statement right away to keep the court informed.

The point of this rule is to let judges know about business connections that might matter for the case, like if a judge owns stock in a parent company involved in the lawsuit. This helps make sure judges can spot potential conflicts of interest early on.