Maryland’s Standing Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure offers several proposed changes each year to the Court of Appeals, which then reviews those suggestions and issues an order adopting many of them. Those changes frequently address rules that wouldn’t directly impact the appellate practitioner, but, in the latest Rule Order (180), there are several changes to Title 8 that the counsel should note. That rule order with redlined changes can be found here.

Two areas of particular note are a significant change to the requirements of a Petition for a Writ of Certiorari and an overhaul of the rules regarding amicus curiae practice.

Your Petition for a Writ of Certiorari will now have to be significantly shorter. Md. 8-303(b)(1) was changed to reduce the number of pages allowed from 25 to 15 while also adding the requirement that the petition includes “a particularized statement of why review of [the] issues by the Court of Appeals is desirable and in the public interest.”

More extensive changes were made to the rules governing an amicus curiae briefing. Particularly, the order adopts major revisions to Rule 8-511. Many of those changes clarify amicus practice and also bring the Maryland rules more in line with many other jurisdictions and FRAP. The timing for some amicus filings has been changed and a new limited reply is allowed by the Appellee to address any matters raised by the amicus.

There are other changes that clarify or update existing rules to bring them more in line with current practices and procedures. Should you have any questions on filing an appeal within the Maryland Court of Special Appeals and/or the Court of Appeals, please contact Counsel Press.

Tagged: Appellate Practice, Appellate Procedure