This is an unsolicited plug for The Recorder’s “California Supreme Court Service” (CSCS).  Many of you may already know about this publication, which has been around for ages, but just in case some folks haven’t yet stumbled upon this, here’s the deal.  The publication consists of “Comprehensive Weekly Reports” summarizing petitions for review recently filed [...]

Rule 8.25(b)(3)(B) of the California Rules of Court provides that several categories of documents, including a brief, a petition for review, an answer to a petition for review, and a reply to an answer to a petition for review, are timely “if the time to file has not expired on the date of” their “delivery [...]

Presumably everyone reading this blog knows that the Supreme Court has the power to grant review on its own motion even when no petition for review has been filed. But did you know that the court can exercise that same power even when a petition for review has been filed? California Rules of Court, rule [...]

The Supreme Court can grant review  “[f]or the purpose of transferring the matter to the Court of Appeal for such proceedings as the Supreme Court may order.”  (Cal. Rules of Court, rule 8.500(b)(4).)  This procedure is commonly called a “grant-and-transfer.” To the extent confusion surrounds the procedure, it stems from the fact that it is [...]

Rule 8.520(d)(1) allows parties in Supreme Court cases to file 2,800-word supplemental briefs “limited to new authorities, new legislation, or other matters that were not available in time to be included in the party’s brief on the merits.”  In the latest edition of California Litigation, former Cal Supreme Court research attorney Gary Simms says the [...]

In this recent New York Times article, Adam Liptak discusses the U.S. Supreme Court’s increasing citation to dictionaries in its opinions.  Liptak notes that, in recent years, the Court has turned more and more to dictionaries to define not only technical terms but also everyday terms.  He observes that the Court has “used dictionaries to [...]

As we noted here, appellate justices around the country are swiftly coming to rely on iPads and other tablet computers when reviewing briefs and draft opinions.  The justices of the California Supreme Court appear to be no exception.  But this is not the only way that iPads are likely to impact practice before the Court.  [...]

Rule 8.208 of the California Rules of Court provides that a party must file a “Certificate of Interested Entities or Persons” in the Court of Appeal with its first motion, application, opposition or principal brief.  (Cal. Rules of Court, rule 8.208(d)(1).)  The purpose of the rule “is to provide justices of the Courts of Appeal [...]

The Supreme Court has the power to order a Court of Appeal opinion depublished.  (Cal. Rules of Court, rule 8.1105(e)(2) [“The Supreme Court may order that an opinion certified for publication is not to be published . . .”].)  It is clear that a depublished appellate decision cannot be cited as precedent.  (Cal. Rules of [...]

A recent article by Sheri Qualters in The Recorder discusses Tivo Inc. v. EchoStar Corp., Slip Op., 2011 WL 1767314 (C.A.Fed. (Tex.)) in which the Federal Circuit issued an en banc order denying the parties’ joint motion to dismiss the appeal after the parties reached a settlement.  The Federal Circuit noted that the parties made [...]

iPads and other tablet computers are all the rage, and not only for surfing the ‘net on weekends and keeping up with your friends on Facebook.  As this article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch discusses, iPads are becoming increasingly popular with judges and lawyers.  Key advantages cited are that they are lightweight (they can store [...]

If you’re counsel for an amicus in the Supreme Court, you may be confused or troubled when perusing the Court’s on-line docket.   You may be wondering what happened to the amicus letter you filed in support of a petition for review.  Sure, you could call the clerk’s office to make sure the letter made it [...]

An e-brief disc is a CD-ROM that contains the record on appeal in searchable form as well as all of the appellate briefs in the case, with hyperlinked citations to authorities and the record.  They are one of the best tools we know for handling the large record case.  They make it a cinch to [...]

Rule 8.512 of the California Rules of Court concerns the procedures for the California Supreme Court to follow when ruling on a petition for review.  No portion of the rule causes us to receive more questions than rule 8.512(b)(1), which provides:  “The court may order review within 60 days after the last petition for review [...]

Further to this post, in which we evaluated the different rates at which the Supreme Court grants review depending on the appellate district issuing the decision, we thought it would be interesting to determine whether there are discernible differences in the rate at which the Court grants review in civil cases depending on the Court [...]

As this graph shows, we’ve reviewed all civil cases in which review was granted during the three years between January 2008 and the end of December 2010 to determine if the Supreme Court is more or less likely to grant review depending on which appellate district issues the opinion.  Assuming a relatively even rate of [...]

This month’s Los Angeles Lawyer contains an article reviewing the California Supreme Court’s several recent decisions interpreting the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).  What we found interesting from a practice perspective is the article’s quotation of Justice Kathryn Werdegar’s Remarks at the State Bar’s 2010 Environmental Law Conference.  There, Justice Werdegar identified the circumstances that [...]

If you’ve practiced before the California Supreme Court for long, you know that the publication status of a Court of Appeal opinion substantially affects your chances of obtaining review.  This makes sense because the Supreme Court is tasked with “secur[ing] uniformity” in California law (Cal. Rules of Court, rule 8.500(b)), and no conflict can exist [...]

We’re aware of a recent situation where out-of-state counsel was granted pro hac vice status to appear in the trial court, but when that counsel’s name appeared as co-counsel on the cover of an appellate brief in the same case, the brief was bounced because a separate pro hac vice application was not filed in [...]

When seeking review from the California Supreme Court, should you go to the time and expense of filing a reply in support of your petition?  The answer is not entirely obvious, especially given the expressed view of some Supreme Court research attorneys that they don’t understand why so many answers to petitions for review are [...]