The VLW Blog

The Supreme Court of Virginia has posted the new Rules of Evidence online as a 27-page PDF file. The Virginia Rules of Evidence, approved in a stormy legislative session, take effect July 1. Because the rules reflect an effort to simply state existing Virginia law, no major change in practice is anticipated. An official set [...]

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The Supreme Court of Virginia’s Advisory Committee on Rules of Court is seeking comment on a proposed Part 9 of the rules that would establish procedures for involuntary commitment proceedings. The committee also wants comment on civil procedure recommendations from the Boyd-Graves Conference on objections during depositions and on voir dire in civil cases. The [...]

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Adoption of a first-time set of local rules in federal courts of the Western District will mean elimination of a long-standing strict order barring lawyers from disclosing details of criminal cases. The 1983 standing order prohibits disclosure of information about a pending criminal case “that is not part of the public records of this Court.” [...]

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In what will be a novelty for the Western District of Virginia, judges plan to publish a set of local rules in the next few weeks to govern practice in the federal courts. “We’re very close,” said Chief U.S. District Judge James Jones of Abingdon. A proposed set of rules was posted in November with [...]

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The Rules of the Supreme Court of Virginia have a new online address and a new look. The rules now are hosted here on the court’s own Web site in PDF form. Steven L. Dalle Mura, director of legal research at the court’s Office of Executive Secretary, says his office now can change the online [...]

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The Virginia Judicial Council adopted today the proposed revision of the rules of appellate procedure essentially as recommended by a 27-member committee headed by Supreme Court Justice Donald W. Lemons. The revisions to Part 5 of the Supreme Court and Part 5A of the Virginia Court of Appeals now go to the Supreme Court, which [...]

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We have yet another example of the importance of precision in appellate practice in Virginia, even if the lack of precision ultimately turned out not to be fatal.The issue stemmed from the detention of Matthew Tremaine Moore in February 2005 after a Henrico patrolman noticed a peeling inspection sticker on the windshield of Moore’s rental [...]

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Oops, silly me! Thinking Federal Express was just as good as, maybe even better than, registered or certified mail. Rena Lindevaldsen represents the biological mother in the celebrated custody case of Miller-Jenkins v. Miller-Jenkins. The Virginia Court of Appeals had ruled that Vermont courts have jurisdiction over the custody of the child the mother delivered [...]

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