Rulemaking gatekeepers for the federal judiciary Tuesday capped off seven years of strife in the defense and plaintiffs bars by backing a milestone measure aimed at optimizing multidistrict litigation, and then promptly greenlighted an entirely different war of words over new efforts to ferret out amicus briefs from “paid mouthpieces” masquerading as independent experts.
The dual developments occurred at the Judicial Conference’s main policy panel, which stamped its approval on the first rule governing MDLs — vast sets of comparable cases often alleging harm from products or practices — and separately endorsed publication of a proposal to require greater transparency and court permission for appellate amicus briefs.
With respect to MDLs, the panel — known as the Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure, or simply the Standing Committee — unanimously gave final approval to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 16.1, which started taking shape in 2017 and repeatedly evolved amid intense acrimony.
