Follow the rules, by Kirby Griffis, Brief Right (with hat tip to Raymond Ward, the [new] legal writer!)

http://briefright.com/follow-the-rules/

 Today’s brief comes from a criminal appeal filed in the Seventh Circuit. A number of things about it attracted my attention. First, it is a brief that the filing lawyer (allegedly) paid a brief writer $5,000 to draft for him. Second, it is an appeal from a decision by the Hon. Chief Judge Joe Billy McDade of the Central District of Illinois, and I don’t believe that Judge McDade is capable of error (though I may be biased). And third, the lawyer who filed the brief was sanctioned for failing to show up for oral argument on it (he said that he was up all night vomiting and didn’t feel well enough to go to court). Though I have great sympathy with feeling ill prior to an oral argument before the Seventh Circuit, it does seem wise to show up anyway when the clerk tells you that you have to.