Hey #appellatetwitter, good typography takes some work, but avoiding bad typography is not hard.
You can achieve competent typography for your legal writing if you just get five basics right.
1. Use normal capitalization for all argument headings & subheads.
NOT ALL CAPS and definitely Not Title Caps. Use all caps only for section headings, like SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT.
Capitalizing headings is the most common typography blunder that good lawyers make. Still a blunder.
2. One space after periods.
3. Don't underline.
Not headings, not cites, not for emphasis. The only underlined text in your brief should be your signature.
Use bold for headings, use italics for cites and for emphasis (sparingly).
4. Don't use the spacebar to indent text.
Use paragraph formatting or at worst use tabs. Spacebar indents are a sad cry for help.
5. Don't use Times New Roman font.
I put this last because it's the *least mandatory of the 5. Sure, most lawyers still use TNR and it isn't awful like Courier or Arial.
But it's dullsville, and my friend you're better than that.
That's it. See, not that hard, right?
Now, to get from not-bad to good, the next thing to fix is your line spacing. For double-spaced text, use exactly 2x font size (e.g., use 28 point spacing for 14 point text). For single-spaced, use Word's 1.15 option. Startling improvement.
For more, check out Matthew Butterick's ludicrously useful online book Practical Typography.
The Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, D. Brooks Smith, is one of the heroes of this horrible year. That is both deeply ironic and squarely in character.
(A very, very long thread.) 1/
Circuit judges wield real power, but they do so almost entirely out of the public eye. They’re not on TV shouting over the host, or even on twitter hurling zingers. 2/
They speak to the public through dense written opinions deciding individual legal disputes, no different than judges a century ago. 3/
Opinion Just issued the CA3 Trump case. Bibas with Smith and Chagares.
Affirmed. Trump loses. Resoundingly.
The opening paragraph:
"Free, fair elections are the lifeblood of our democracy. Charges of unfairness are serious. But calling an election unfair does not make it so. Charges require specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here."
- Winning Brief, Garner
- Supreme Court & Appellate Advocacy, Frederick
- Sense of Structure, Gopen
- Dreyer's English
- Storycraft, Hart
- Typography for Lawyers, Butterick
If you're in CA3, then PBI's Appellate Practice Manual, too.
For me, @BryanAGarner's Winning Brief was the gateway drug, the book that first made me realize how oh-so much I still had to learn about effective writing. And all these years later it's still my answer to "what 1 book should I get first?"
George Gopen's Sense of Structure is an elaboration of Joseph Williams's Style: Lessons in Clarity & Grace, which was the single book that improved my writing the most.
We filed our amicus brief last night! Click through for a link to it if you're interested in reading it. It's a brief on behalf of 5 top legal scholars explaining why Trump's appeal should be dismissed due to the bananas remedy he's seeking.
Like @hannnahmmarie, I'm tremendously proud to have been part of this team effort. What a privilege to have my name on a brief for heroes of mine like @LeahLitman, @marinklevy, @RickSwedloff, Erwin Chemerinsky, and Portia Pedro.
I haven't been posting today about the big Trump campaign Third Circuit appeal, I've been busy working on an amicus brief a group of us are readying to file in the case. More on that once we file.
In the meantime, parties Trump's suing—the Pa. Secretary of State and a slew of county election boards—filed their briefs this afternoon. I expect other amicus briefs (friend of the court briefs, offered to help the court decide the appeal) to continue coming in.
I've seen several smart commentators already with reactions and highlights from today's briefs, including @RMFifthCircuit and @bradheath.
If Trump ever does appeal yesterday's beatdown, that appeal goes to the Third Circuit. No guarantees, but I predict it's decided by the same panel that decided Bognet on 11/13: Chief Judge Smith, Judge Shwartz, and Judge Scirica.
If that's the CA3 panel, expect much confusion (again, as w Brann) about what it means. Smith was nominated by Bush II, Shwartz by Obama, Scirica by Reagan. But even though Smith & Scirica are moderate conservatives (& Shwartz is centrist) Bognet was a disaster for Trump's case.
But, to be clear, that's only my educated guess about what 3 Third Circuit judges would decide an appeal from yesterday's ruling by Judge Brann, not based on any inside info.