Rule 3.09 - Mechanical Requirements(A) Applicability to paper and electronic documents The requirements of this rule apply to both paper documents and electronic documents submitted through the E-Filing Portal, unless a provision is clearly inapplicable to electronically filed documents.
(B) General (1) Typeface (a) Every original document filed with the Supreme Court shall be single-sided, shall be typewritten or prepared by computer, word processor or other standard typographic process, and shall comply with the requirements of this rule. Only the single-sided portions of a document will be scanned and made part of the official record in the case.(b) The text of all documents shall be at least 12-point type and in one of the following typefaces: (iv) Arial Standard (i.e. not Black, Rounded, Unicode or Narrow);(c) If one of the typefaces specified by division (B)(1)(b) of this rule is not available, the filing party shall use a typeface that is substantially equivalent to the typefaces listed in that division and that has no more than eighty characters to a line of text.(d) Italic type may be used only for case citations and emphasis. (e) The Clerk of the Supreme Court may accept a handwritten document for filing only in an emergency, provided the document is legible. (f) The text of all documents must be sufficiently dark to be legible when scanned.(2) Paper (a) All documents shall be on opaque, unglazed, 20 to 22-pound weight white paper, 8 1/2 by 11 inches in size. (b) The original shall not be stapled nor otherwise bound and shall not contain dividers or tabs. (c) All margins shall be at least one inch, and the left margin shall be justified.(d) Documents shall not be enclosed in notebooks or binders and shall not have plastic cover pages. (3) Spacing and footnotes The text of all documents shall be double-spaced. Footnotes and quotations may be singlespaced; however, they shall also be in 12-point type.
(C) Copy of an opinion or decision(1) When these rules require that a copy of a court or agency opinion or decision be attached to a document filed with the Supreme Court, the copy shall be either of the following: (a) A photocopy of the opinion or decision issued directly by the court or agency; (b) An electronically generated copy that meets the requirements of division (A)(3) of this rule, except that an electronically generated copy of an opinion may be single-spaced. (2)Unless otherwise required by these rules or the Supreme Court Rules for the Reporting of Opinions, parties are discouraged from attaching to briefs any legal decision generally accessible through online legal-research databases.(D) Supplements to briefs Any supplement to the briefs filed pursuant to S.Ct.Prac.R. 16.09 may be prepared and reproduced by photocopying the relevant documents in the record, even if those documents do not comply with the mechanical requirements of division (B) of this rule, provided that the requirements as to paper size and paper type are met and each page of the supplement is clearly legible. Both sides of the paper may be used in preparing a supplement.
(E) Volumes (1) Paper documents Any paper document filed with the Supreme Court that exceeds two inches in thickness shall be bound and numbered in two or more parts, with each part containing a cover page and a certificate of service.
(2) Electronic documents Any electronic document filed with the Supreme Court that exceeds three-hundred pages shall be submitted as two or more Portable Document Format ("PDF") files, with each PDF file containing a cover page and a certificate of service.
(3) Cover pageWhen a document is submitted in multiple volumes, all volumes shall contain a cover page as required by S.Ct.Prac.R. 3.07.
(F) Failure to comply Documents that fail to comply with the requirements of this rule may be stricken by the Supreme Court.
Ohio. R. Prac. S. Ct. 3.09
Effective Date:6/1/1994, Amended: 4/1/1996; 6/1/2000; 2/1/2001; 7/1/2004; 2/1/2007; 1/1/2008; 1/1/2010; 1/1/2013; 1/1/2015; amended January 8, 2019, effective 3/1/2019; amended November 17, 2020, effective 1/1/2021.