The biggest case of a lawyer's career is now on appeal. Maybe it involves a month-long trial. Maybe it involves a certified class action. Maybe it involves summary judgment after multiple Grady/Frye motions. Whatever the reason, both parties are staring at a record well in excess of 10,000 pages. What to do? The Pennsylvania Rules of Appellate Procedure provide the framework. Rule 2154(b) provides that, in cases involving “large records,” the appellant may defer preparation of the reproduced record until the time of briefing. Since reproduced record citations are unavailable under this large-record procedure, it necessarily alters the parties' briefing schedule. Rule 2154(c)(2) precludes application of large-record procedures to children's fast-track appeals.

What constitutes a large record is not defined by the rule, which contains only the admonition, in a comment, that this “deferred method is a secondary method particularly appropriate for longer records.” The purpose of this deferred method is to reduce the size of the reproduced record in large-record cases, as a note to Rule 2186 makes clear:

“The delayed filing of the reproduced record results in the designation and reproduction of the minimum amount of the original record since the parties will then know exactly the portions of the original record mentioned in their briefs and may accordingly limit the amount of record reproduced.”