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   Effective Dec. 1, 2010, a number of new amendments to the Federal Rules came into force.  These amended rules cover several areas encompassing the appellate, bankruptcy, civil, and criminal rules, as well as, the rules of evidence.  The specific rules affected are:

• Appellate Rules 1, 4, and 29, and Appellate Form 4;
• Bankruptcy Rules 1007, 1014, 1015, 1018, 1019, 4001, 4004, 5009, 7001, and 9001, and new Rule 5012;
• Civil Rules 8, 26, and 56, and Illustrative Civil Form 52;
• Criminal Rules 12.3, 21, and 32.1; and
• Evidence Rule 804.

The amendments were approved by the Supreme Court on April 28, 2010, and as Congress has passed no legislation to the contrary, the amended rules according to the Rules Enabling Act, 28 U.S.C. 2074(a), now govern all federal judicial proceedings commenced on or after Dec. 1, 2010.  A summary of the rules, supporting documents, and the amendments themselves are posted on the Federal Judiciary’s website.  The incorporated rules may presently be viewed online via the Federal Rules web page at Cornell’s Legal Information Institute (LII) website.  Pending a republication of the rules in their entirety, they should soon be available online at the Federal Judiciary’s “Rules and Forms In Effect” web page as well.

Likewise, the new print 2011 edition of Moore’s Federal Rules Pamphlet (in 4 volumes) incorporates the new rules and is available for check out from the library's Reserve Collection: KF8840 M642 Rules/Pt.1-4/2011 (24 hour loan).

Submitted by Eric Taylor, Evening Reference Librarian on January 20, 2011

This article appears in the categories: Law Library

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