Monday, January 21, 2008

What Justice Koontz said at the VBA meeting

Justice Koontz talking about brief-writing said one thing the appellee should do is to organize its brief in the same way as the appellant's brief, no matter how inane, so that the brief readers can do a side-by-side analysis of the issues, one by one.

He also said think about why the Court granted the petition (which would be great if only they would tell us).

He said shorter briefs are better and acknowledged that the Court has been changing the Rules to require shorter briefs.

He said that in a case where the Court awards an appeal, before the argument, every brief gets read by every justice.

He said all else equal, footnotes are bad.

I didn't have the nerve to cross-examine him about, well, you know.

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