Brief QC overview

On June 2, 2025, the Sixth Circuit rolled out its newest service, Brief Quality Control, or Brief QC. Brief QC is designed to prevent non-compliance issues with appellate briefs before they are formally filed with the Sixth Circuit. It is an additional step in the traditional ECF filing procedures that flags certain compliance issues.

The aim of Brief QC is to reduce the administrative burden placed on the Clerk’s Office and practitioners. As mentioned in the Brief QC announcement, the Sixth Circuit issued more than 700 deficiency notices in 2024, delaying cases and posing significant other issues.

The federal courts’ rule enforcement authority

In the Sixth Circuit, although the court will not dismiss “for informality of form or title” of the notice of appeal, pursuant to FRAP 3(c), the Local Rules state that electronically filed documents “must conform to technical requirements established by the Judicial Conference or the court.” 6 Cir. R. 25(a)(2). The Sixth Circuit also supplements the FRAP with respect to required components of briefs. 6 Cir. R. 28. Multiple local rules reference dismissal as a potential sanction for being “out of compliance” with a brief filing requirement.

Brief submission process overview

Once an individual begins brief filing under ECF and attaches the relevant document, Brief QC reviews the document for common errors.

If any errors are detected, a “Document Check Result” screen appears with details of flagged errors. Individuals can then either “Cancel” the filing event, exiting ECF to correct the document, or “Continue,” submitting the flagged brief as is. Selecting “Continue” completes the submission of the brief, while selecting “Cancel” terminates the filing process and leaves no record on the docket sheet.

For a more detailed outline of the filing process please reference the Sixth Circuit’s resource linked here.

Brief filing deadline extensions

For those of us who are last minute filers, there is a potential benefit to Brief QC. If an issue is flagged, an automatic two-day extension is available upon request. But beware – this process can only be used once.

Brief QC disclaimer

Notably, every document submitted is still reviewed by Court staff for rule compliance. Therefore, even though a document passes Brief QC’s review, it is not guaranteed that a document will not receive deficiency notice and require corrections outside of Brief QC’s detection scope.

What’s the takeaway?

Sometimes getting flagged for an “out of compliance” brief is a complete surprise. This tool should help reduce those experiences. Brief QC is not new to the federal courts – it had been implemented by the Fifth Circuit and is now being implemented by the Sixth and Eighth Circuits.

We’re cautiously optimistic that tools like Brief QC will reduce embarrassing errors and potential deadline issues and look forward to using the tool in our next filing.

Thanks to Porter Wright’s Summer Associate Tyler Cummin for today’s post regarding the quality-control feature available in the Sixth Circuit.