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75 Am. Bankr. L.J. 35 (2001)
Bankruptcy Rules Made Easy (2001): A Guide to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure that Apply in Bankruptcy

handle is hein.journals/ambank75 and id is 47 raw text is: Bankruptcy Rules Made Easy (2001): A Guide to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure that Apply in Bankruptcy by The Honorable Christopher M. Klein* The lists in this guide correlate the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (Civil Rules) with the Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure ('Bank- ruptcy Rules). They were devised as a survival tool for a federal civil litiga- tor who found himself in bankruptcy court. Many professionals-lawyers and judges alike-erroneously assume that the Civil Rules do not apply in bankruptcy. To be sure, Rule 81(a)(1)' does say that the Civil Rules do not apply in proceedings in bankruptcy ... except insofar as they may be made applicable thereto by rules promulgated by the Supreme Court.2 When one, however, examines the except clause, it turns out that seventy-seven of the eighty-nine Civil Rules are imported, in whole or part, into the Bankruptcy Rules-sixty-seven by way of express incorpo- ration and another ten by restatement in essentially identical language? The exception has largely swallowed the rule. The puzzle is why there is not general recognition that bankruptcy prac- *United States Bankruptcy Judge, Eastern District of California; Member, Bankruptcy Appellate Panel of the Ninth Circuit and Advisory Committee on Bankruptcy Rules, Judicial Conference of the United States. The views expressed herein, as well as all errors and inaccuracies, are purely personal to the author. 'In this Article, rules with one or two digits (e.g., Rule 6 or 37) refer to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, and rules with four digits (e.g., Rule 7037) refer to the Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure. 'The full text of Rule 81(a)(1) provides: (1) These rules do not apply to prize proceedings in admiralty governed by Title 10, U.S.C. §§ 7651-7681. They do not apply to proceedings in bankruptcy or pro- ceedings in copyright under Title 17, U.S.C., except in so far as they may be made applicable thereto by rules promulgated by the Supreme Court of the United States. They do not apply to mental health proceedings in the United States Dis- trict Court for the District of Columbia. FED. R. Civ. P. 81(a)(1) (emphasis added). 3There are, arguably, more than ten examples of restatement. The line has been drawn on a subjective basis based on whether one might be assisted in knowing about that particular bridge between the Civil and Bankruptcy Rules.

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