10 Tuesday Jan 2017
Posted in 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, Appellate Law, Appellate Writing, Bad Legal Writing, Brief Writing, Legal Writing
≈ Comments Off on How Long Is Too Long For An Appellate Brief?
Posner criticizes ‘verbosity’ in appeals briefs in decision upholding closed voir dire, by Debra Cassens Weiss, Appellate Practice, ABA Journal.com (with hat tip to William P. Statsky)
Judge Richard Posner is a well-known 7th Circuit jurist, legal writing scholar, and prolific author. Knowing this, it is puzzling why the appellate briefs for both sides were over 200 pages each. Yes, Judge Posner had something to say about it. -CCE
22 Wednesday Apr 2015
Posted in Abbreviations, Appellate Writing, Bad Legal Writing, Brief Writing, Editing, Initialisms, Legal Writing, Readability
≈ Comments Off on A Novel Approach To Circuit Court’s Word Limit Rule. If Only It Had Worked!
Squished-Together Words Don’t Count As One, Federal Circuit Says; Appeal Is Tossed, by Debra Cassen Weiss, ABA Journal (with hat tip to William P. Statsky!)
A litigant that squeezed multiple words together and resorted to abbreviations didn’t satisfy word limits in its briefs and won’t be able to pursue its appeal, according to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
The appeals court tossed the patent appeal by Pi-Net International in an April 20 order (PDF). How Appealing links to the opinion and a story by Law360 (sub. req.), which dubbed the creative wording ‘a trick straight out of high school English class.’ . . .
* * *
On appeal, JPMorgan objected to Pi-Net’s first brief, saying it attempted to evade the 14,000 word limit by deleting spaces between various words and squeezing them together, according to the Federal Circuit. The Federal Circuit offered an example: One case citation consists of 14 words, but Pi-Net squeezed them together to make them into one word. . . .
16 Thursday Apr 2015
Posted in Abbreviations, Acronyms, Bad Legal Writing, Brief Writing, Court Rules, Courts, Initialisms, Legal Writing, Local Rules, Spell Checking
≈ Comments Off on Too Many Acronyms = Alphabet Soup.
Tags
ABA Journal, Abbreviations, Acronyms, Brief Writing, Court Rules, Debra Cassen Weiss, Legal Writing
Check Your Briefs For Acronym Overuse, DC Circuit Clerk Tells Lawyers In Campaign Finance Case, by Debra Cassen Weiss, ABA Journal
Acronyms continue to bedevil the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
Parties before the court are advised in circuit rules to avoid little-known acronyms; lawyers who didn’t heed the advice were called out in a 2012 opinion. Now the clerk’s office is doing its part to police the briefs. . . .
The Researching Paralegal 
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