Today, the Supreme Court published an Omnibus Rule Amendment order. It is available here. The amendments take effect on September 1, 2026.
Though the amendments affect a number of Court Rules, there is only one amendment that affects any of the Part 2 appellate rules. That change relates to the Transcript Delivery Certification, which is provided by the transcriber of the transcript(s) being filed in connection with an appeal.
Currently, Rule 2:5-3, which deals with the Transcript Delivery Certification, provides that “[w]hen the last volume of the entire transcript has been delivered to the Appellate Division, the court reporter supervisor, clerk or agency, as the case may be, shall certify its delivery on a form to be prescribed by the Administrative Director of the Courts. That transcript delivery certification and a complete set of the transcripts shall be forwarded immediately to the clerk of the court to which the appeal is being taken. A copy of the certification shall also then be sent to the appellant. The Appellate Division shall serve a copy of the certification on all other parties upon filing within the electronic case jacket and, if the appeal is from a conviction on an indictable offense, on the New Jersey Division of Criminal Justice, Appellate Section.”
The amendment effective on September 1 deletes that language and states instead that “a complete set of the transcripts shall be forwarded immediately to the clerk of the court to which the appeal is being taken.” The Transcript Delivery Certification and the requirements as to its delivery are being eliminated. The process has thus been streamlined.
That amendment also affects current Rule 2:6-1(a)(1)(G). Rule 2:6-1(a)(1) lays out the “Required Contents” of the appellant’s, or a joint, appendix. Subsection (G) currently lists “the transcript delivery certification prescribed by [Rule]2:5-3(e).” Since Rule 2:5-3 is being amended to delete the Transcript Delivery Certification as described above, Rule 2:6-1(a)(1) is being amended to delete existing subsection (G) and to re-number the rest of the “Required Contents” of the appendix.
This is not to say that the amendments to other Court Rules are unimportant, or that those amendments will never affect appellate practice. But the appellate rules themselves are affected only to the limited extent of the elimination of the Transcript Delivery Certification.
