Kentucky Rules for Appellate Procedure Changes 4-1-26 – PART 2 cover art

Kentucky Rules for Appellate Procedure Changes 4-1-26 – PART 2

Kentucky Rules for Appellate Procedure Changes 4-1-26 – PART 2

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Episode 17: Louisville attorneys Rob Mattingly and Kevin C. Burke are happy to provide an opportunity for 30 minutes of Kentucky continuing legal education credit. This episode of the Legal Notepad podcast is PART 2 of the discussion of amendments to the Kentucky Rules of Appellate Procedure (RAP) taking effect on April 1st, 2026. A major update to RAP 22 makes the civil appeal pre-hearing statement optional, removing a common "gotcha" that previously limited the issues a party could raise if they were omitted from the initial form. The new RAP 23 serves as a standalone rule highlighting the critical requirement to notify the Attorney General of any constitutional challenges in both the trial and appellate courts. RAP 30 provides more certainty for calendaring by clarifying that a reply brief is due 15 days after the last appellee brief is filed or due, while RAP 31 updates word limits for combined reply briefs. Further changes include RAP 32, which waives the statement of points and authorities for briefs under 1,750 words, and RAP 60, which corrects a clerical error regarding original actions. Finally, RAP 63 modifies supersedeas bond requirements by eliminating "damages for delay" and confirming that the trial court retains jurisdiction over all bond-related matters. Editor's Note: If you are an attorney and would like CLE credit for this episode, visit the Kentucky Justice Association website, click the Education and Training tab and look for the podcast. Jim Ray: Welcome back to this episode of the Legal of Notepad podcast. This is actually a continuation of something we started in Episode 16. So Rob and Kevin jumped into the Kentucky Rules for Appellate Procedure, which are going through some changes. In fact, effective April 1st, 2026, there were a number of amendments that are coming into play and they started discussing several of those. So this episode 17 is actually a continuation of that topic. So with that, I'll hand it back over to Rob and let's get going. Robert Mattingly: Alright, listeners. Jim is exactly right. Episode 17 is PART 2 to Episode 16. Starting April 1st of this year, 2026, there are several new revisions to the Rules of appellate procedure. We've got Kevin Burke in the studio and he is going through all of those with us. I've got to tell you, appellate law is not something I do. I tend to find that Kevin, can I call it a snooze fest? I don't mean to make fun of what you do. Kevin Burke: I mean, I understand. I can understand and appreciate that sentiment. Robert Mattingly: I mean, sometimes I'm like, give me a good contentious deposition. Kevin Burke: There you go. Robert Mattingly: Or a rowdy witness. What do you all do up on appeal? Are you like, man, I hope they say something mean in their brief. Kevin Burke: Basically. Yeah, that's it. It's more limited than what you're doing in the trial court where stuff happens blows up on a day-to-day basis. Yeah. So it's not like that. Robert Mattingly: You and I try to have a lot of fun for those that listen to Episode 16, and please, if you haven't listened to Episode 16, you might want to stop this podcast and move over and listen to it. This is PART 2. Let me do the clerical stuff I have to do every time. This is going to be submitted to the Kentucky Bar Association for hopefully 30 minutes. That's our goal. 30 minutes of CLE. If you listen to Episode 16, that would've also been 30 minutes. So you would get a full hour on this. That should be approved through, as you all know, our CLE deadline of June 30th every year. So in this case, June 30th, 2026. And then usually what we'll do is renew them for a year. So hopefully you can get credit all the way through up to June 2027. I'll also remind us if you listen to that, number 16, we're trying to have a little fun. When you abbreviate Rules of Appellate Procedure, it is RAP. So, we have tried to work in, just to make this a little fun, various rap references, and we're trying to count them. So, if you hear them, email us and maybe we'll have a prize for whoever gets the count, right. Although I think we tend to probably give most of them away. Kevin, why don't you do this? Start by just giving us a quick review. Remember, this is going to be about 30 minutes, so give us a real quick review of what we covered in 16. Kevin Burke: Yeah, so these again are the rule changes that go into effect on April 1st, 2026. These are revisions to the complete overhaul of the rules that went into effect in 2023. So what we covered in our last episode, we covered what happens when you have multiple appellants, multiple appeals, and how those appeals can either be consolidated or heard together by, in the court of appeals, the same panel or in the Supreme Court, that they can be heard together even on the same day for oral argument purposes, that sort of thing. That was RAP 2. And then we covered some minor changes in RAPs 5 and 7 about initials, ...
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