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FEBRUARY EXTRA 1998
 

Overview of topics...

Lead Note:

MORE QUESTIONS (AND ANSWERS) ON THE SIGNING AND CERTIFICATION REQUIREMENT THAT TAKES EFFECT MARCH 1, 1998

Open Citations:

 

  • Youngs (Issue 60:Page 3): 237 A.D.2d 700.
  • Aabco (64/3): 174 Misc.2d 232.
  • Laino (65/2): 235 A.D.2d 25.

 ARTICLE HEADLINES

FEATURE ARTICLE:
MORE QUESTIONS (AND ANSWERS) ON THE SIGNING AND CERTIFICATION REQUIREMENT THAT TAKES EFFECT MARCH 1, 1998
(Answers in printed issues)

Q: Is the signing and certification requirement that goes into effect on March 1st entirely new?

Q: Then what's the difference?

Q: Is that the whole difference?

Q: Is there a requirement imposed on the lawyer to look beyond the client's factual allegations before signing on to them?

Q: Does the rule intend to impose the requirement of outside investigation to corroborate the client's averments, as the federal rule has been held to do by some courts?

Q: Is there caselaw on the federal counterpart that can serve as guideposts?

Q: Is that now to be the New York rule?

Q: In what courts and cases does this new provision apply?

Q: Does that include the appellate courts?

Q: Wouldn't conduct sufficient to invoke a sanction under the certification requirement also support a disciplinary proceeding?

Q: Couldn't this kind of conduct be punished as a contempt?

Q: Then why wasn't a remedy left to the existing contempt statutes?

Q: In point of procedure, is Rule 130-1 easier to apply than the contempt statutes?

Q: Does the signature requirement apply to a paper filed without service, or served without filing?

Q: Need the lawyer accompany the paper she signs with an actual cetification form?


 
Q: Need the lawyer actually sign the affidavits of others that the lawyer is submitting on, e.g., a motion?

Q: Isn't the signing attorney protected if not on reasonable notice of the falsity of the facts asserted in the paper?

Q: What if something of that sort comes to the lawyer's attention after March 1, 1998, with respect to a paper served earlier in a case commenced earlier?

Q: Is this anything like the supplementation requirement applicable to pretrial disclosure?

Q: What papers need the signature?

Q: Under the amendment, do papers that used to bear only the firm name now have to carry as well the name of an individual lawyer and that lawyer's signature?

Q: Will this signing requirement now apply even to some papers that may not have carried a lawyer's name before?

Q: Would a rubber stamp of the attorney's actual signature suffice?

Q: Does this include briefs and memoranda?

Q: Must each set of papers be signed or can just one set be signed and the others bear only a photocopied signature?

Q: Isn't an "original" always destined for the court's file of the case?

Q: Should documents and records generated outside the law office invoke a different rule?

Q: Would a typed or stamped name on a copy suffice if it is preceded by "s/" signifying that on the original the name was actually signed?

Q: Can one signature do for a number of papers?
 
Q: How does this new certification requirement interplay with the CPLR's verification requirements?

Q: If an attorney's signature does appear on a verification, does it suffice as a Rule 130 signature on the paper verified?

Q: How does Rule 130-1 figure alongside verification?

Q: Who takes the initiative on an application for costs or sanctions under Rule 130-1?

Q: Does the signing requirement apply to the summons?

Q: Does the signing requirement apply to a subpoena?

Q: Even if the summons or subpoena, or any other paper, had to be signed and wasn't, doesn't Rule 130-1.1-a(a) indicate that the defect should be called to that party's attention so that the omission may be "corrected promptly"?

Q: Isn't there any federal experience to answer the question about whether a summons has to bear a signature?

Q: How should the recipient of an unsigned paper call to the opposing lawyer's attention the fact that the paper had to be signed?

Q: What advice to the one who served or filed the unsigned paper?

Q: Will the filing or service of a summons or complaint lacking an actual signature be inadequate to commence an action?

Q: What remedy if the omission of a signature is not corrected "promptly"?

Q: Can a paralegal's signature serve in place of a lawyer's?

Q: Need documents and like papers being served or filed also be signed by the lawyer?

Q: Can federal caselaw furnish guidance?

         
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