This is our 31st edition of the Federal Civil Rules Handbook. Our founding goal for the Handbook has remained constant over these many years—to assist practicing lawyers, judges, and scholars in locating quick, reliable answers to pressing questions in federal civil practice. From the inception, the Federal Civil Rules Handbook has aimed to bridge the ravine between a simple, austere reprinting of the Rules, and costly but exhaustive multi volume treatises exploring the Rules in comprehensive depth. The handbook occupies the middle-ground – a reprinting of the Rules accompanied by a sensibly comprehensive compendium of practical, quickly-accessed distillations of the Rules in operation; an affordable, annually current, predictably organized, single-volume, easily referenced tool for understanding and applying the Federal Civil Rules. Co-authored with Professor Steven Baicker-McKee of Pittsburgh, Pa.