To practically no fanfare, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court recently issued the latest set of amendments to the Pennsylvania Rules of Appellate Procedure. See In re Order Amending Rules 102, 2020 Pa. Lexis 174 (Pa. Jan. 7, 2020). While many of these changes are technical and nonsubstantive, others are more significant. This article is intended to familiarize appellate practitioners with those amendments that might make a difference in advance of their Aug. 1 effective date.

The most significant change is the creation of a new appellate avenue, a “petition for specialized review,” accompanied by an entirely new Chapter 16 of the appellate rules. This form of “specialized review” is limited to “certain discrete issues,” primarily “ancillary and preliminary to appellate review.” Chapter 16 is also “intended to provide the method for initiating any otherwise-authorized form of appellate review” not provided for by existing rules, in particular appeals from government actions. This new procedure is available for different levels of appellate review. Certain petitions must be filed in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, see Pa. R.A.P. 1611(a), 1613(a), while all other specialized review occurs in the intermediate appellate courts, with Supreme Court review governed by the existing provisions of Chapter 11.

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