The District of Delaware announced today that it is instituting a 5pm filing deadline for all documents other than initial pleadings. Chief Judge Connolly issued an order revising section (F) of the Court's CMECF Procedures (part of the Court's other local rules):
Effective September 1, 2022, section (F) of the Court's Revised Administrative Procedures Governing Filing and Service by Electronic Means shall be further revised as follows, to reflect a new filing and service deadline of 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time for all documents other than initial pleadings:
(F) Deadlines
Filing documents electronically does not in any way alter any filing deadlines. Aside from initial pleadings, all electronic transmissions of documents (including, but not limited to, motions, briefs, appendices, and discovery responses) must be completed by 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time, in order to be considered timely filed and served that day. All electronic transmissions of initial pleadings must be completed prior to midnight Eastern Time, in order to be considered timely filed that day. When CM/ECF calculates a deadline, it will include intermediate weekends and holidays as prescribed in Fed.R.Civ.P. 6.
That's a lot of text. You may be wondering: did anything else change? No. The text is identical to the current version other than the revision to 5pm.
The new deadline goes into effect on September 1, so be ready!
A Great Change!
This is a wonderful revision to the rules, and attorneys who practice here have been talking about it for some time.
It may not seem like much, but most child care providers in the Wilmington area close at 5:30pm or 6pm, and the current (soon-to-be-previous) 6pm deadline can make life very difficult for staff and attorneys who need to pick up their children. This is a real quality of life improvement, especially for newer attorneys and paralegals who may deal with last-minute filings almost every day.
This change also brings the deadline into alignment with the state court's 5pm filing deadline. It should be familiar to regular patent practitioners as well, given the ITC's hard-line 5:15pm deadline.
When the Court initially implemented the 6pm deadline, some attorneys around town were concerned that it would drive parties away from litigation in the District of Delaware. That hasn't happened, and the 6pm filing deadline has been a great success in improving work/life balance for attorneys who practice here (both as lead and Delaware counsel). I expect similar results from the move to a 5pm deadline.
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