Rule 73.Appeal from a Judgment, Order, or Decree of a General Magistrate or a Magistrate.

Subdivision (a) routes these appeals to the chief judge or the chief judge's designee, and it fixes the kind of review you get: appellate in nature and on the record. That single line shapes everything else. You are not retrying the case. You are showing that something in the existing record went wrong, using the evidence and testimony already there.

Subdivision (b) carries the deadline that decides most of these appeals. The Notice of Appeal goes to the Domestic Relations Clerk's Office within twenty days of entry of the judgment, order, or decree. Note the trigger: entry, not the day the magistrate announced the ruling from the bench. The notice must name the parties taking the appeal and identify what is being appealed, and the current form sits on the Judiciary's website under Public Resources, Forms. The chief judge may extend the time for filing for good cause, which is the only ground the rule names.

Two more twenty-day clocks follow. Under subdivision (f), the appellant orders a transcript of the parts of the proceedings the appellant deems necessary within twenty days of filing the notice. An appellee who thinks other parts belong in the record must order them immediately or seek an order making the appellant do it. Subdivision (e) says that, except where otherwise provided, the filings and exhibits admitted into evidence, the transcript of the proceedings, and the docket entries make up the record on appeal. Under subdivision (g), the appellant then has twenty days after the record is complete to file a statement of the issues and a memorandum of law, and the appellee has twenty days to respond.

The rest of the rule keeps the appeal moving. Subdivision (d) lets the chief judge or the designee enter a stay pending appeal, an injunction, a temporary restraining order, or other orders protecting the parties' rights until the appeal is heard and decided, which matters when support or custody is running under the order you are challenging. Subdivision (h) allows a conference to narrow the issues or explore settlement, and subdivision (i) leaves the chief judge or the designee free to alter any time frame in the rule when the interests of justice and equity require.