The Georgia Court Of Appeals Changes Its Rules

Effective January 1, 2017, the Georgia Court of Appeals has made a number of changes to its rules. For practitioners, the most significant change is to the limitations on the length of briefs. Instead of limits of 30 pages in civil cases and 50 pages in criminal cases for the opening briefs of the appellant and the appellee, the Court will have word limits of 8400 words in civil cases and 14,000 words in criminal cases. This works out to 280 words per page. That may overstate the number of words that will fit on a page when prepared in 14-point type (federal appellate courts now apply a standard of approximately 240 words per page). Briefs filed after January 1, 2017 may end up being longer than before the rule change.