The march towards paperless courts continues in North Carolina. The latest step is the elimination by the Court of Appeals of paper copies of oral argument calendars.

You remember those. They came on yellow paper and listed all the cases to be heard during a particular week and the panels hearing them. The calendars also included the cases to be decided without oral argument, as permitted by Rule 30(f) of the North Carolina Rules of Appellate Procedure.

A few months ago, without fanfare, the Court of Appeals stopped sending out oral argument calendars.

That change came with the implementation in June of a new docketing system. The system will send electronic notification of oral argument hearings to attorneys who provide email addresses. The Court of Appeals will pick up counsel’s email address from the Identification of Counsel page in the Record on Appeal.

While glitches in the notification system are being worked out, the Court is providing telephone notice to counsel of oral argument hearings a week or two in advance of the hearings. If you now are worried that you might be on a calendar in November but haven’t gotten notice yet, here’s the link to the calendar for that month. If you want to see the full lineup of cases set for hearing during a particular term of court, the calendars will continue to accessible on line.

The opinions of the Court will continue to be sent via regular mail.