Designate the Record

“My duty then shall pay me for my pains.”

— ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL act 2, sc. 1; Helena to King of France

“Never anything can be amiss,
When simpleness and duty tender it.”

— A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM act 5, sc. 1; Theseus, asking to be shown Quince’s unsophisticated play

‍Your first obligation after filing your Notice of Appeal is to determine what parts of the trial court record need to be included for this appeal. Tenn. R. App. P. 24(a) controls the contents of the record on appeal, which includes (1) copies of everything filed in the trial court except those  the rule specifically  excludes ; (2) original exhibits filed in the trial court; and (3) transcripts of proceedings in the matter. So, the rule has you covered. Right? 

Not so fast. It might not be necessary to include literally everything in the record to have a good appeal. Both Tenn. R. App. P. 24(b) and Tenn. R. App. P. 24(g) generally discourage the inclusion of unnecessary elements. It is your required duty, counselor, to determine which portions of the record are necessary to convey a fair, accurate, and complete account of what transpired in the trial court concerning the issues on appeal.  

Prepare your Designation of the Record. In this document, you let the trial court clerk know what portions of the record they need to include in the appellate record. In this document, you will also alert the clerk of which transcripts and exhibits you intend to include. It is important to note that this document in the appeal process is filed with the trial court clerk, not the Court of Appeals (as will your Notice of Filing Transcripts. That comes later.)

As the Appellant, you must file your Designation of the Record 15 days after the filing of the Notice of Appeal. As the Appellee, you have 15 days after the Appellant’s filing to file your own Counter-Designation of the Record if you determine anything important has been excluded.  

The true objective of the Designation of the Record is to achieve Aristotle’s mean between too much and too little. This streamlines the process.  The benefits of a streamlined record include lowering the expenditures of the state by reducing the shipping costs of transcripts, lowering the costs on appeal, and more importantly, enables the Court to review the necessary documents efficiently.

This might even result in a quicker decision in your appeal.