District/Municipal Courts Rules for Appellate Division Appeals  Rule 9: Appeals under Rule 8C: Transmission to the Appellate Division

Upon receipt from the appellant of six copies of the Appeal on Record of Proceedings, as provided in Rule 8C(g), the clerk shall promptly record such receipt on the docket and transmit the six copies and six certified copies of the docket to the Appellate Division.

This rule does not adopt the provisions of Mass. R.A.P. 9 requiring the clerk of the trial court to "assemble the record." Under that rule, the appeal cannot proceed until that assembly is complete. Yet the clerk is required to complete the assembly "as soon as may be," creating the potential for significant delay. Moreover, the assembled record is retained in the trial court unless and until needed in the appellate court and this appears to be a rare occurrence.

In contrast, the trial court clerk under these rules transmits the appeal to the Appellate Division as soon as the necessary acts are taken by the parties, culminating in the appellant filing six additional copies of the Appeal on Record of Proceeding.

This approach relieves the clerk's office of a task that can prove unnecessary to the disposition of the appeal and the cause of substantial delay. In the event that the Appellate Division needs all or any of the original documents on file in the case, it can obtain them directly from the trial court.