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Tag Archives: Kirby Griffis

In Litigation, First Things First.

10 Thursday Mar 2016

Posted by Celia C. Elwell, RP in Brief Writing, Discovery, Evidence, Legal Writing, Litigation, Motions

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Brief Right, Brief Writing, Evidence, Kirby Griffis, Litigation, Motions

Motions first, depositions second, by Kirby Griffis, Brief Right!

http://briefright.com/motions-first/

In my business, litigation, there is a typical order of events. A lawsuit is filed, then discovery is taken, then motions are filed and ruled upon, and then there is a trial. Litigators who haven’t thought carefully about their business may fall into the error of compartmentalizing these steps too much. Have you ever gone to write a crucial motion, only to discover that the testimony or documentary evidence that you need to put forward under the applicable law was never obtained, or came in the wrong way without being fixed?

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Avoid These Mistakes When Writing Your Brief’s Statement of The Facts.

25 Wednesday Mar 2015

Posted by Celia C. Elwell, RP in Brief Writing, Legal Writing, Statement of Facts

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Brief Right, Brief Writing, Kirby Griffis, Statement of the Facts

Your Statement of Facts Matter, by Kirby Griffis, Brief Right!

http://briefright.com/facts-matter/

When lawyers get started writing a brief, they often seem to get themselves warmed up by explaining to the court what the brief is about. Or so they think. These early sections, which might be called ‘Procedural Background,’ ‘Background of the Motion,’ or something related, are a good place to look for this common briefing error.

It starts with a blitz of irrelevant dates, which may be further muddied by a seeming lack of certainty about those same dates. Here’s an example: ‘Plaintiff filed her Complaint on or about June 5, 2011.’ Why would you ever say this to the court? . . . .

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String Citations – Good or Bad Legal Writing Tool?

29 Sunday Jun 2014

Posted by Celia C. Elwell, RP in Bad Legal Writing, Brief Writing, Citations, Legal Analysis, Legal Argument, Legal Writing, String Citations

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Bad Legal Writing, Brief Writing, BriefRight Blog, Kirby Griffis, Legal Writing, String Citations

String Theory, by Kirby Griffis, BriefRight Blog

http://briefright.com/string-theory

String citations – a good writing tool or a bad idea? Lengthy string citations, like long single-spaced block quotations, are never a good idea. Readers tend to skim or skip a big block of text.

A good rule of thumb is to never cite more than four cases in a string. Start the string with a signal. Use a parenthetical — an abbreviated summary of the case in parentheses at the end of the citation. Keep your parenthetical no longer than two lines. Anything longer defeats the purpose of using string citations. -CCE

Your summary judgment brief contains eleven distinct legal propositions, including the standard to be applied in ruling on summary judgment. You have researched each, and have found multiple cases. You have read them and highlighted them and they are sitting on your desk in eleven stacks. You have even sorted each stack, moving the most persuasive authorities (because they are from your state and circuit, or are more recent, or are from higher courts) to the front.

Now what?

Many lawyers will just list every one of the cases in a string cite. This, they think, shows the judge the weight of the authority behind your legal claims. The judge will see nine cases listed and think ‘Wow, I guess they win that point.’

It is not so. String cites are a bad idea, for multiple reasons. . . .

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Writing For The Court – It’s Not All About Content.

15 Sunday Jun 2014

Posted by Celia C. Elwell, RP in Bad Legal Writing, Brief Writing, Legal Argument, Legal Writing, Legalese, Plain Language, Proofreading, Readability

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Brief Writing, BriefRight, Kirby Griffis, Legal Writing

TrialRight Again, by Kirby Griffis, BriefRight

http://briefright.com/trialright-again/

Picture yourself as the judge or the judge’s law clerk. You read briefs and other documents all day. Most are boilerplate language. When someone does have an original thought, the writer ruins it with redundancies and poor grammar and punctuation. 

Imagine the Court’s relief when someone writes a brief that makes a concise legal point supported by correctly formatted citations. This is a short article, but it makes a strong argument for clear writing. -CCE

Last week, I wrote about how some of the principles of briefwriting apply just as strongly to trial practice. There’s another important principle that applies strongly to each. I learned it years ago from an excellent trial lawyer: everything is evidence.

In court, the jurors start to evaluate who in the courtroom they can trust and believe from the moment they first walk through the door, from before voir dire to after closing argument. Their scrutiny is not limited to the content of your formal speeches and witness examinations: it extends to your demeanor as you sit at counsel table, how much you object and when, whether you fumble with exhibits, whether you arrive to court each day in a limo, and everything else that they can see. You must think about all of these things.
Similarly, in your legal briefs, the judge is not just paying attention to content. She is also influenced by how long the brief is, its formatting, its clarity, and many other factors as well. . . .

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Great Blog on Brief Writing!

25 Monday Nov 2013

Posted by Celia C. Elwell, RP in 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, Criminal Law, Legal Writing

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Brief Right, Brief Writing, Court Rules, Joe Billy McDade, Kirby Griffis, Legal Writing

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.

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