Federal Civil Rules Handbook 2007 ed.

The Federal Judiciary devotes a section of its U.S. Courts web site to Federal Rulemaking, including extensive information on the new civil rules. The Federal Rulemaking page is available at www.uscourts.gov/rules/. While this page includes many helpful, authoritative documents, it is very difficult to use. For an understanding of the history and intent of the rules changes, I recommend the Feb. 25, 2005 memo to the public from the Judicial Conference Advisory Committee on Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and the Introduction to Proposed Style Revision of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure of the same date. These documents are found in one, large PDF file called "Feb. 2005 Proposed Style Rules Amendments (PDF)" in the "Archives (more)" section of the Federal Rulemaking page, or directly at www.uscourts.gov/rules/Prelim_draft_proposed_pt1.pdf. The New Rules - Side-by-Side with the Old In the "Archives (Rules Effective Dec. 1, 2007)" section of the web site, the Committee published "Excerpt of the Report of the Advisory Committee on Civil Rules (Style Rules)." This 255-page PDF document sets out the old rules 1-86 next to the new rules and includes the committee notes below each rule. To avoid searching the site, you can access this document directly at www.uscourts.gov/rules/supct1106/Excerpt_CV_Style.pdf. This same document has been published by LexisNexis as a soft-bound, pamphlet supplement to Moore's Federal Practice. The pamphlet is entitled "Revision of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure." If your firm does not have Moore's Federal Practice but you do subscribe to Lexis.com, you can find the document there for a fee under the "Emerging Issues" section of the Litigation Practice & Procedure materials.