The revised rules, which will remain open for public comment until July 19, would eliminate motions hearings before the court. Instead, cases will largely follow one of three paths to a decision by the high court following the justices' first conference about a given appeal.

If the justices decide the case does not warrant a hearing, they would issue a memorandum decision, offering "a succinct statement of the reason the underlying decision is being affirmed or reversed," according to a news release from the Supreme Court.

Under new Rule 19, the court would hear brief arguments -- five minutes for each side -- in cases that involve settled law, or where the case involves a narrow legal issue or alleges insufficient or wrongly weighted evidence, or where a hearing is required by law.

But in more weighty cases, including constitutional issues, cases originating before the high court, issues where lower courts have issued conflicting opinions, or where the matter is "of fundamental public importance," both sides will have 15 minutes to argue, under new Rule 20.

The Rule 20 cases are the ones most likely to set precedents and result in full written opinions. Under the new rules, if after a Rule 19 hearing the justices want more information about a case, they can shift it to the Rule 20 docket for a more extensive hearing.

Supreme Court Clerk Rory Perry discussed the proposed rules with more than 100 lawyers in Charleston on Monday. Perry will conduct additional seminars in the upcoming weeks at the following locations: Wheeling (today), Fayetteville (Wednesday), Parkersburg (Thursday), Buckhannon (Friday), Logan (Monday), Morgantown (May 25), Moorefield (May 26), Martinsburg (May 26) and Huntington (June 3). The times and locations are available on the Supreme Court's website.

The justices and other court personnel have spent months working on the revised rules, Chief Justice Robin Davis said during brief opening remarks.

"The rules of appellate procedure were written in 1864 and have been amended and modified several times, but the last major change was after the Judicial Reorganization Amendment of 1974," she noted in her prepared comments. "Now, rules that do not conform to modern legal practice simply have to be fixed."

The proposed rules also call upon lawyers to streamline the appeals process by submitting only the parts of the record relevant to the appeal, preferably in an appendix to the petition.

Under the current rules, parties submit the entire record, which can make finding the correct document cited more complicated than necessary. Appeals typically come with a foot of documents, Perry said.

The court has published copies of the proposed rules, which includes commentary from Perry briefly describing the significance of the changes. The rules can also be viewed at http://www.state.wv.us/wvsca.

Two of the rules, No. 2 (delineating the court's ability to suspend its own rules) and No. 23 (which deals with interest on judgments), remain unchanged. There are 18 proposed rules that are new.

Some of the changes, such as the criteria for docketing a case for argument under Rule 20, reflect the suggestions of the Independent Commission on Judicial Reform, Perry noted in his comments.

Gov. Joe Manchin appointed the commission in April 2009, and its final report, delivered in November, recommended, among other things, the formation of an intermediate appeals court.

In February, Davis and fellow justice Menis Ketchum told a joint meeting of the Senate and House judiciary committees that an intermediate court was unnecessary. Davis directly disputed a claim by the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce that the Mountain State is the only state without a right of appeal of a lower court's ruling.

"Every person in the state of West Virginia that has a case decided by a circuit court has an absolute right of appeal to the West Virginia Supreme Court," Davis said at the time, adding that the Chamber's assertion was "flat-out wrong."

Each petition is "fully and fairly" reviewed by all five justices, but that did not always result in a written opinion or an argument before the court, she told the lawmakers.

Monday's news release takes issue with the suggestion that the court's actions are in response to proponents of an intermediate court, such as the state Chamber of Commerce.

"The revised rules are not a response to criticism from any party or any special-interest group," the news release states. "Perry has been making notes about obsolete rules and ways to improve case management since he became clerk in 2000. Those changes form the core of the revised rules."

A tentative timeline would have the court approve the new rules during the September term of court, and they would go into effect at the beginning of next year.

Reach Andrew Clevenger at acleven...@wvgazette.com or 304-348-1723.