Federal Civil Rules Handbook 2020

From the inception, the Federal Civil Rules Handbook has aimed to bridge the ravine between a simple, austere reprinting of the Rules, and costly but exhaustive multivolume treatises exploring the Rules in comprehensive depth. The handbook occupies the middle-ground – a reprinting of the Rules accompanied by a sensibly comprehensive compendium of practical, quickly-accessed distillations of the Rules in operation; an affordable, annually current, predictably organized, single-volume, easily referenced tool for understanding and applying the Federal Civil Rules.

Our format remains familiar. The handbook begins with an introduction to general concepts in federal practice, addressing issues such as personal and subject matter jurisdiction, removal, venue, and issue and claim preclusion. Then, each rule is discussed in turn, beginning with the current rule text, followed immediately by author commentary to that rule and its subparts. The commentary distills each rule's “Purpose and Scope”, summarizes the “Core Concept” of each rule's various subsections, and culminates in easily accessed textual discussions of the rule's subparts in “Applications” – including helpful citations from the Supreme Court, the Federal Courts of Appeals, and the District Courts.

This publication also includes:

• More than 1,200 citations to new interpretive cases, saving research time
• Expert discussion and practice tips, including practical applications, limitations, and traps to avoid
• Advisory Committee notes
• The most often-consulted sections of Title 28 (Judiciary and Judicial Procedure) of USCA®
• The federal appeals rules with forms
• Evidence rules
• An introduction to federal multidistrict litigation