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?
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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? |
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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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