The California Rules of Court were reorganized and renumbered effective January 1, 2007. Yet last night, a superior court judge from a neighboring county told me that approximately half of the memoranda that cross his desk still use the outdated numbering scheme. He blames it partly on a “cut and paste” approach to brief writing.

Whether it’s from cutting and pasting or not, the continued reference to old rule numbering – more than four months after the new numbering took effect – is very revealing about the lack of cite-checking being done by lawyers and their paralegals. Alarmingly so. Or are they doing their cite-checking, but using outdated code books to do so?