Judge Altice elevated to Indiana Court of Appeals: How is his replacement selected?

Governor Pence will appoint his replacement. There is more than a month to name his successor before Judge Altice will likely take the bench at the Court of Appeals.

Applications will be requested here: https://secure.in.gov/gov/2330.htm Here’s the governing law:

Use a duplicate contact to simplify changing Outlook forwarding rules in transitions

I use Outlook's rules to keep my e-mail nice and tidy. I also use them to make sure my assistant keeps updated on the goings on. Or I used to, anyway. And now I do again. And I figured out how to simplify updating those rules to make sure the next time I change assistants. I set up a duplicate contact, tell rules to send it to that contact, and change the e-mail address listed for that contact whenever the person changes. All the rules sending messages to that contact (now with a different address) will automatically change.

Changes to the Indiana Appellate Rules in January 2015

The Indiana Supreme Court has adopted several important changes to the Indiana Rules of Appellate Procedure effective January 1, 2015. I’ve summarized them below, sorted by topic and importance.

Indiana lawyers: make sure to start tracking pro bono hours and gifts to legal-services groups

Indiana Rule of Professional Conduct 6.1 imposes a duty on each lawyer to provide “public interest legal service,” and comment 1 sets the goal at fifty hours a year.

In September, the Court added Rule of Professional Conduct 6.7 by this order. As part of our annual registration, we’ll be required to report “reportable pro bono legal services for the previous calendar year ending December 31.” We’ll also be required to report financial contributions to qualifying legal service organizations.

Today's Election Day. Is my brief due today or tomorrow?

If you have a brief due in an Indiana state court today, it's actually not due until tomorrow. It's Election Day, and Election Day is a legal holiday among Indiana's state offices.

For example, Indiana Appellate Rule 25(A) states that any "legal holiday as defined by state statute, or a day the Office of the Clerk is closed during regular business hours" is a nonbusiness day. And Rule 25(B) says the last day of a period stated in the rules is counted in the computation of days "unless it is a non-business day. If the last day is a non-business day, the period runs until the end of the next business day."

Indiana Code § 1-1-9-1(a) lists "legal holidays within the state of Indiana for all purposes." Among them is "Election Day, the day of any general, municipal, or primary election." (Note that next week brings another holiday, "Veterans Day, November 11." And the holiday will be on either Friday or Monday when it falls on a weekend.

Correct names of Indiana state courts don't include the word "county"

Names of Indiana’s state courts (e.g., Marion Circuit Court) don’t include the word county. Many lawyers, court staff members, and even judges and judicial candidates make this mistake. It’s the sort of thing I always correct but never mention. But it’s also something I learned to catch as a law clerk for the Indiana Supreme Court.

Roundup for August 11, 2015

Here are the posts to the Tatum's Tips Facebook feed, and blog since the last roundup.

Posts to the blog

Correct names of Indiana state courts don't include the word county.

Are briefs due on election day in Indiana?

Indiana lawyers: make sure to start tracking pro bono hours and gifts to legal-services groups. 

Changes to the Indiana Appellate Rules in January 2015.

Use a duplicate contact to simplify changing Outlook forwarding rules in transitions.

How is Judge Altice's replacement on the Marion Superior Court selected? 

Get your Table of Authorities to sort things right.

Stories from around the Internet posted to the Facebook page

 Federal judge imposes arbitrary definition of double-spacing on BP's lawyers, media goes wild. NPR coverage here. Guide on typography with advice on line-spacing here. The order is here.

How to adjust who triggers notifications in your Facebook toolbar. And more general help on notifications here.

The basics of good typography. (If you don't have time for Typography for Lawyers or perusing its companion "Practical Typography."

Test your document's readability. The article's here. Analysis of the accessibility of presidential speeches here. NPR story covering the analysis here.

Don't use headline-style headings. Instead, use sentence-style caps. Article here.

What is an en-dash? Article here.

Let's eliminate Courier from modern typography. Article here.

Add items to the right-click drop-down menu in Windows. Article here. More general set of directions to add shortcuts to the same menu here.

RSVP already says "please," so please RSVP is redundant, and snoots sneer at its unnecessary repetitiveness. Also, it's not a noun.  Slate article on "RSVP" here.

Federal appellate judges are often not assigned randomly. Article here.

Avoid legalese. Article here.

Avoid big words if you want to be taken as smart. Article here.

Use Quick Steps to speed up your Outlook organizing. Article here.

Use toward, not towards. Article here.

March fourth is National Grammar Day. Article here.

Change many file names at once with Ant Renamer. Software download here.

Stop using and/or. Article here.

Caselaw is one word. Article here.

Don't use corporatese. It's annoying and empty of meaning. Article here. ROUNDUP BONUS: Weird Al's excellent takedown of corporatese here.

Create an RSS feed for any Twitter handle. Article here. RSS feed for @incourts here (or copy and paste https://script.google.com/macros/s/AKfycbx_pFhkDQ5C5QvNMG7mJ5AoUdSNfVLTkV2eDH4srGQUdi3tjg/exec?609044444420018176).

Use categories, not folders, to organize Outlook. Article here.

Use a single folder with categories to organize Outlook. Article here.

Use rules to automatically categorize incoming e-mail. Video here.

Use the Resend This Message command for repetitive messages. Article here.

When to italicize foreign terms; and always italicize a word when using it as a term. Article here.

Copy path of a file to the clipboard using SHIFT + Right-Click. Article here.

Don't compare a city to North Korea in a brief to the court. Order here. Subscribe to Short Circuit here.

 

Have a question about writing, software, navigating courts, or resources that are helpful in any of those? I am compulsive about finding answers, so let me know if you have a question about something that might relate to all this. Post a question at www.facebook.com/TatumsTips/.