The bane of every appellate practitioner’s existence is the dreaded deficiency notice from the Appellate Division. Last night’s meeting of the New Jersey State Bar Association’s Appellate Practice Committee included a discussion of the most common deficiencies in briefs and appendices submitted to the Appellate Division. That discussion was based on information from the Clerk’s office. Here is the list of most common deficiencies: No “Table of Judgments, Orders and Rulings Being Appealed” with references to the location in the appendix of any such items....

The Third Circuit has scheduled the next Third Judicial Conference for May 13-15, 2020 at the Penn’s Landing Hilton in Philadelphia. As discussed here, the Court had previously announced a Spring 2020 Judicial Conference in Philadelphia, but now actual dates and location have been set. This Judicial Conference will be open to attorneys, the first such Judicial Conference to be a “Bench-Bar” since 2017. The Third Circuit had been opening its Judicial Conferences to attorneys every other year for a period of time, but has now reverted to its previous practice of doing so...

Goldfarb v. Solimine, 460 N.J. Super. 22 (App. Div. 2019). Everyone has their favorite judge(s) before whom they would prefer to try a case. In this case, “a defense attorney, in an ex parte communication, sought [a particular] judge’s assignment to the case, and the judge responded by specifically requesting the assignment from the presiding judge.” The requesting judge, a longtime member of the bench, got the assignment. Plaintiff learned of these events and sought to recuse the judge. Recusal was denied. After trial, plaintiff appealed, renewing his argument on that...