Technology should make our lives easier. I have only used typewriters a handful of times in my life, but I love hearing from older attorneys about how difficult it was to type up a pleading — make an error, and that page had to be redone. Make an error and find out about it ten pages later, sometimes eleven pages had to be redone.

Which is why Rule 2-341(e) of the Maryland Rules, had it been in effect in the 70s, would have been a big hassle. That rule requires:

Highlighting of Amendments.  Unless the court orders otherwise, a party filing an amended pleading also shall file at the same time a comparison copy of the amended pleading showing by lining through or enclosing in brackets material that has been stricken and by underlining or setting forth in bold-faced type new material.

Curiously, this rule, based on Local Rule 103(6)(c) of the Rules of the United States District Court of the District of Maryland, applies to circuit court cases, and there is no counterpart for district court cases. Perhaps the Rules Committee figures that district court practice is too fast-paced to warrant this protocol. I bet if they knew how easy it was to comply, they would change their tune.

Some people try to do this manually — going through a pleading, selecting a portion to be excised, right-clicking it, selecting “font,” and then clicking “strikethrough” to show a deletion. Try doing that in a 100-paragraph pleading. If you want an easier way, this is it (for Word 2010 users):

1. Find your original pleading.  Open it up.
2. Under the “File” tab, click “Save as.”  Name it something easy, like “P’s Amd. Complaint (07-24-11).”
3. Click the “Review” tab.
4. Click “Track Changes.”
5. Also in the “Review” tab, make sure your settings are correct — I usually click “Show Markup” which brings up a drop-down menu. Select “Balloons” and click “Show only Comments and Formatting in Balloons.” This makes formatting changes (underlining, bold-type, etc…) obvious on any amended pleadings. All other changes will be shown in the text of the pleading.
6. Make whatever changes you want to the pleading. If it makes it easier, you can select “Final” from the “Review” tab so that you don’t see markings of the changes, but only see the final version.
7. Before printing the “highlighted” copy, make sure that “Final: Show Markup” is selected from the “Review” tab.  Print.
8. Then, print the final (without markup) by selecting “Final” from the “Review” tab.

All new material will be underlined, and all deleted material will have a line through it.

Now, if you forgot to do the whole “track changes” thing, and you just made a new document, you have two pleadings (let’s call them “Original” and “Amended”). What to do?

1. Open up the Amended pleading.
2. In the “Review” tab, click “Compare” and select “Compare.”
3. The computer will prompt you for the location of the original document, and the location of the amended document. Input that information.
4. Click the “More” button to see the framwork for tracking changes. The default is usually fine. Importantly, make sure that under “Show changes in” you click the “New Document” button.
5. Click “Ok.”
6. Click anywhere in the “Compared Document,” then print.
7. Also, be sure to save the compared document. Something like “Highlighted Amd. Complaint (07-24-11).

Both WordPerfect and earlier versions of Word have this capability, though the process is a little different. This will save you (or your paralegal) a lot of time, and is more reliable than manually searching for changes. It’s so easy, you might even use it on your district court pleadings — just to be nice to opposing counsel.

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