A Review of the New 'Restyled' Federal Rules of Civil Procedure

On Dec. 1, the new “restyled” Federal Rules of Civil Procedure became effective and now apply in all civil actions pending or filed in federal court. All of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (Rules 1-86) as well as the accompanying Appendix of Forms (Forms 1-82) have been restyled. The restyled rules are the culmination of a four-year, comprehensive textual-revision project by the Advisory and Standing Committees on the civil rules, the first such revision of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure since their original enactment in 1938. As explained in the Judicial Conference Report, the restyled rules are intended to “clarify, simplify, and modernize” the presentation and language of the civil rules.

Language changes have been made in each of the rules to reduce or eliminate inconsistent, ambiguous, redundant and outdated terms. In addition, the rules have been reformatted so that nearly every rule is now subdivided into separately lettered and numbered constituent parts with progressively indented paragraphs and individual headings. Although the restyled rules retain the same rule numbers as before, there are numerous instances in which provisions within a rule have been shifted to another previously existing subdivision or moved to a newly created one. The Advisory Committee Note accompanying the new rules specifically describes the rule revisions as “stylistic only” and expressly emphasizes that the revisions “are intended to make no changes in substantive meaning.”