This week, the Supreme Court updated its rules. Most attention focused on the new system to check for conflicts of interest. Merits briefs now need to include relevant stock ticker symbols for the parties. This step seems modest, but probably not worth the effort. Only two Justices hold stocks (Roberts and Alito). And they've somehow managed to recuse in all the cases they should have recused in. If any case slipped through, the potential conflict was likely unknown to anyone, which raises the question of whether there was a conflict! If a Justice doesn't actually know that his ruling will help or hurt one of this financial interests, what is the problem? This rule imposes a new burden on litigants, followed by a new administrative burden to the Court, to potentially identify a near-null-set of cases that weren't already flagged. I agree with Gabe Roth and others that Justices should not hold individual stocks. But Alito and Roberts apparently disagree.
The biggest change is one that does not seem to have garnered nearly enough attention. The Court modified Rule 29 to provide a new standard for a timely brief:
2. A document is timely filed: (1) if it is received by the Clerk in paper form within the time specified for filing; or (2) if it is sent to the Clerk through the United States Postal Service by first-class mail (including express or priority mail), postage prepaid, and bears a postmark, other than a commercial postage meter label, showing that the document was mailed on or before the last day for filing; or (3) if it is delivered on or before the last day for filing to a third-party commercial carrier for delivery to the Clerk within three calendar days; or (4) if it is properly submitted to the Court's electronic filing system on or before the last day for filing. For a document submitted to the Court's electronic filing system, required paper copies of the filing must be delivered or mailed to the Clerk through one of the methods in subsections (1)-(3) above within three days of the electronic submission….
