CBA Record April-May 2019

Under the standards for electronic filing of records, the clerk of the circuit court is required to transmit CDs, DVDs, and flash drives to the appellate court when transmitting the regular record electroni- cally. Records consisting of these types of media do not require a motion for leave to file in original form. Id. § 3(d)(v). For the sake of brevity, this article does not address the requirements regarding documents that are filed under seal. The supreme court standards address how the circuit court clerk prepares and transmits sealed (or “secured”) portions of the record. The manner in which records are sent to the appellate court has also changed. Law firm errand runners (or attorneys) no longer have to lug boxes of bound paper records down Randolph Street from the Daley Center to the Bilandic Building, file them with the appellate court, withdraw them, and then take them back to their law firm for use in preparing the appel- lant’s brief. Rule 325 now provides that the clerk of the circuit court shall elec- tronically transmit the record on appeal

Requirements for Electronic Filing [of ] the Record on Appeal, § 3(d)(iv) (eff. June, 2017). If exhibits are important to your appeal, make sure that the clerk of the circuit court has them, properly marked and file-stamped, and has been instructed to include them in the “exhibits” section of the record on appeal. Attorneys often engage in the perilous practice of taking exhibits back after a trial or hearing for “safekeeping.”The better practice is for the judge to properly mark and date them, and direct the clerk to secure them so that they can be placed in the exhibits section of the record in case of appeal. Presumably, trial exhibits were tendered in open court in paper form. If those exhibits can be elec- tronically scanned, the clerk of the circuit court should scan them once they are in her possession. Similarly, if a party filed a pleading including a non-documentary exhibit (such as a video recording), the party should manually file them and follow up with the clerk later to make sure these are included in the record on appeal.

to the appellate court upon payment of the required fees. Record on Appeal: Errors and Disputes Errors and omissions indeed occur, and it is the party’s responsibility to make sure that the record on appeal includes all items necessary for the proper adjudication of the appeal. These mistakes might include omission of a pleading in its entirety, or something as simple as a missing page in a document because of a scanning glitch. If the clerk of the circuit court has not yet transmitted the record to the appellate court, the party can bring omissions to the attention of the clerk and request a correction. If the record has been filed, a party may request that the clerk of the circuit court prepare a supplemental record containing the missing items. Because the Supreme Court Rules only anticipate the filing of a single record on appeal, the party must then file a motion in the appellate court for leave to file a supplemental record instanter . Ill. S. Ct. R. 329 (eff. July 1, 2017). Depending on the circumstances,

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32 APRIL/MAY 2019