I am (morbidly?) curious about the history of such a set of rules, especially when they deviate from what a layperson would consider typical.
I dunno, you’ve got to have some sort of rules otherwise they’d get all sorts of crap (especially at the Supreme Court level, which attracts all sorts of kook lawyers) that would take ages to deal with and hamper the administration of justice. When you impose a set of formatting rules, some of them are going to seem arbitrary, because they are. Doesn’t mean some specific rules aren’t bad, of course.
Hell, me too. When and where did 6 1/8 by 9 1/4 come from?
Nothing particularly interesting, unfortunately.
They had no rule on the format until 1879, when they started requiring any printed material be to be something that could be “cut and bound as an ordinary octavo volume”, which is a pretty wide range (8 to 11 inches height). And then in 1925 they specified exact dimensions, which have been unchanged since then.
The exact dimensions they specified are those of a “medium octavo” format.
In Federal Court each level and jurisdiction has its own set of rules for filings. In general, District Courts are the least strict—filings are electronic, usually in 81/2 x 11 or equivalent size, normal font sizes, etc. There are usually page or word limits for common motions and briefs, but some things (notably post trial briefs in a bench trial) tend to be unlimited. Some judges ask for courtesy copies, but they are rarely bound. I know some judges require tabbed binders for complex motions with lots of supporting exhibits, e.g. summary judgment.
The Courts of Appeals all (I believe) require that a brief be bound, although they are generally 8.5x11 with ring or spiral binding. There are word limits for all filings, and you must attest to the word count. At the Courts of Appeals, the documents are standardized enough that if someone is trying to cheat the word count it is very obvious. We caught a litigant when I was there, and I would not recommend trying it—judges hate it. Also, having some basic typographic sense (and consulting the local rules or guidance) is highly recommended. Poorly formatted briefs stand out in a bad way, and are shocking distracting.
A part of me believes that SCOTUS has its especially finicky rules to catch people that are not paying attention and do not follow them—like some (possibly apocryphal) rock band contracts.
They are a real challenge for first time litigants that do not qualify for in forma pauperis though. Best to consult a treatise on practice early, or you will spend all night the day before filing retyping all of the documents you want included in the appendix.
Thank you and @jsnell, both. That all makes sense. Lots of tradition, which isn’t unexpected. Great info, even though I strongly suspect I will never have to prepare a document for submission to the Supreme Court and any filings I need to do with a lesser court, I’ll have a professional do for me. :)
A lot of those rules come across to me as the court saying, indirectly but clearly, to litigants and lawyers alike, “Don’t waste our time.” Is that reasonably accurate?
I also confess I have now spent more time than I ever expected reading about book binding sizes and formats.
This isn’t directly P&R related but is law related. When I started my current job 4 years ago, I did my first few Court Calls, which was an innovation to me - appearing in court via phone, through an operator who connects you to the court. Then COVID hit and video appearances became the rage, Zoom, Microsoft Teams, etc. I even did some workers’ comp trials via video.
Now, today, I had a court appearance set up via Court Call the old phone way and it just felt so old school and dowdy. No video, no little line of faces, still having to go through the formality of an operator. So weird!
So, what was new and innovative 4 years ago is now old and busted.
Cheaper than Lexus/Nexus I guess?
(n.b. I did not read the article)
Weird that they went back to the old stuff?
As noted for SCOTUS, court procedures can have massive inertia - plus Court Call charges money so I’m sure they were in there with their snout open for some fees
I mean SCOTUS uses shit with no basis in fact or oversight at all, so Wikipedia is probably a step up in most cases.
One of my law school classmates has been nominated for the California Supreme Court by Gov. Newsom. I did not know her well, but well enough to talk to in the hallways. I believe we were also in the law school ACLU together as well. I believe she was also active in the law school LGBT association (I forget the acronym they were using in those days). She always struck me as very intelligent and committed to what I consider good political causes.
A good nomination IMO.
That’s great to hear. Thanks for sharing your perspective.
A really interesting and - these days - rare blog post from Ken Popehat.
That was a hell of a story, thanks for posting a link to it.
Real article I just saw on Law360:
I have no idea who that is or what the case was about. What’s the context?
I have no idea either, but this stands out in the Twitter thread:
"Anyone wanting to show that Vic Mignogna is a sexual predator and pedophile can just point folks to this appeals opinion
And if Mignogna sues anyone for defamation because they pointed out he’s a sexual predator and pedophile, the defendant can cite this opinion "
It appears to be this, more or less:
The decisions seems largely to be evaluating the allegations against him, reproducing them in full, and finding that they aren’t defamatory. In doing so, it aggregates a whole bunch of those allegations into a single easy-to-link document, for convenient future internet-arguing.