Unless millions are at stake, Italian lawyers should be brief. The Italian Minister of Justice has signed a ministerial decree that will come into force on 1 September 2023 and prescribes 80,000 keystrokes and a maximum of 40 pages for the first lawyer's pleadings in legal disputes with a value of less than 500,000.00 euros. After all, this is an increase of 30 % compared to the previous requirements, which the Client Letter had already reported on (source: Sole 24 Ore of 10 August 2023).
What happens if the lawyer does not adhere to this and produces a few more copies? Then the party may lose the right to reimbursement of costs (Court of Verona, I civil section, decree of 29/09/2023).
The sanction of the "Consiglio di Stato", which in Germany corresponds to the Federal Administrative Court, is even harsher. It simply dismissed an action because it was too long (Cons. Stato Section V, dated 22/09/2023, no. 8487).
