Federal Civil Rules Handbook, Thomson Reuters/West, 2017

Law Library Reserve Collection: KF8816 .A193

Effective Dec. 1, 2016, new amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) came into force.  West publishes this useful handbook every year to help practitioners keep up-to-date with these changes.

The rules affected are Rule 4(m) (summons and service of process), Rule 6(d) (computing/extending time) and Rule 82 (jurisdiction and venue).

This volume contains the text of all the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure as amended and in their entirety.  The text of each Rule is followed by an Authors' Commentary, which explains the core concept of the rule, followed by Practice Pointers expanding on the rule's application.  In the case of those rules amended this past December, the Authors' Commentary will also offer a short explanation for the amendment.

A deeper explanation of the purpose behind the revisions may be found in Part VIII containing the official Advisory Committee Notes.  The Advisory Committees “carry on a continuous study of the operation and effect” of the federal rules as directed by the Rules Enabling Act.  In effect, these Notes constitute the principal source of the Rules "legislative history."  You will find not only the Advisory Committee Notes for 2016, but for all years in which a Rule was amended.

Supplemental materials include an introduction to general concepts in federal practice such as personal and subject-matter jurisdiction, removal and remand, venue and forum non conveniens, the Erie doctrine, and claim/issue preclusion.  Additional chapters cover Multidistrict Litigation, Appellate Procedure, the Federal Rules of Evidence, and selected sections from Title 28 U.S.C. Judiciary and Judicial Procedure.

The 2017 edition contains more than 1300 new citations from the federal courts decided between Fall 2015 and Summer 2016 in an ongoing effort by West to help practitioners keep current with the courts' evolving approach to the rules and their amendments.

The Federal Civil Rules Handbook is not available on Westlaw.  So just drop by the Circulation Desk and you can check it out.

Submitted by Eric Taylor, Evening Reference Librarian on January 20, 2017

This article appears in the categories: Law Library