We're Suing the FCC. Here's How It Works.

How soon can you win a legal victory and end this nightmare? The soonest Free Press can file in court is after the order is published, either by the Federal Communications Commission itself or in that Federal Register. (There are some complicated timing rules that can apply differently to different parts of the FCC’s vote, so that’s why there’s some flexibility.) Once that publication happens, we’ll file within 10 days — a timeframe set for making a first appearance and starting the process to determine which federal appeals court will hear the case. Wherever and whenever we go, this first filing will just be an initial declaration of our intent to seek a review of the FCC’s actions in that appeals court. There are likely to be several challenges, or maybe even several dozen, and they could be filed in different courts. Once the challenges all get consolidated into a single case and courtroom, and this procedural phase is over, that’s when there will start to be consideration of the merits — or rather, the lack thereof — in what the FCC did.

What happens after that? Next we’ll file our brief, which will present our argument for why Title II and the Net Neutrality rules built on it should be restored. This filing will probably happen in May or June at the earliest, but the timing depends on the procedural phase discussed above — how many parties there are in the case, how long it takes to choose the venue for the litigation, and how easy it is to settle any procedural arguments that may come up during that shaking-out period.