Update Your ECF Email Address: Or Risk Losing Your Client's Appeal Rights

The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in Communications Network Int'l, Ltd. v. MCI WorldCom Communications, Inc., a 2-1 decision issued on January 24, dismissed an appeal as untimely because the putative appellant's lawyer failed to update his email address in the district court's ECF system when he changed firms. There's an important lesson about diligence for all lawyers in this.

The district court (SDNY) entered judgment on September 24, 2010, so the deadline to file a notice of appeal was October 24. The clerk entered the judgment on the electronic docket, and notice was automatically sent to counsel, complying with the clerk's duty under Fed. R. Civ. P. 77(d) to "serve notice" of the entry on the parties. Unfortunately for the losing party, the email address on file in the ECF system for its Philadelphia lawyer (from an earlier, unrelated case) was from a prior firm, and he had not updated it, as the ECF rules require.