We’ve all heard of doctors lamenting the need to order lots of tests for the most mundane symptoms in order to protect themselves from malpractice lawsuits. Are lawyers exhibiting equivalent behavior? Last week, a post at the Lawyerist blog (Want To Destroy Your Case? Throw In The Kitchen Sink.) featured a federal district court decision adopting the recommendations of the magistrate judge to order sanctions all around in a sexual harassment lawsuit — i.e., all of the attorneys on both sides had monetary sanctions imposed against them. On the plaintiff’s side, the attorneys were sanctioned for what Lawyerist called “evidence-free sexual harassment and retaliation allegations.” On the defense side, the attorneys representing the…
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Do longer briefs correlate to success for Appellants?
I cannot think of a single writing seminar I have attended or book I have read that did not emphasize succinctness. Now comes a paper published at the Social Science Research Network, “Too Many Notes”? An Empirical Study of Advocacy in Federal Appeals (download link),which, if this excerpt from the abstract is any indication, appears to raise a statistical challenge to that line of thinking, at least in the Ninth Circuit: Given the central role of written briefs in the process, we should examine seriously the frequent complaint by appellate judges that briefs are too long and that prolixity weakens persuasive power. In a study of civil appeals in the United States…
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Skilling’s 58,922-Word Brief Accepted by Fifth Circuit
The WSJ.com Law Blog reports that the Fifth Circuit has granted former CEO executive Jeff Skilling’s request to file an overlength brief. WSJ.com has posted the Fifth Circuit’s order, which allows Skilling to file his brief of 58,922 words — 44, 922 words over the normal limit, or more than 4 times the maximum length provided by the rules — and grants permission for the government to do the same. My round-up of coverage on Skilling’s request several weeks ago, including links to substantive analyses of his arguments, appears here.
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Roundup: Skilling’s Brief
Former Enron executive Jeffrey Skilling’s brief in the appeal of his criminal conviction states in support of his request for oral argument that his prosecution was “perhaps the most prominent and publicized white-collar case ever prosecuted.” One might guess he felt that way from the length of his opening brief: 237 pages and roughly 60,000 words. The blog posts I’ve seen on this credit WSJ.com’s Law Blog post as the first. It includes a link to the brief and credit’s Skilling’s lawyers for “some nice rhetorical touches,” two of which it quotes. While that post offers some bullet-point analysis of the arguments made in the brief, those truly interested (but…