Filing a U.S. Supreme Court brief is a consuming task. By its very nature, Supreme Court litigation makes demands on your talents, your time, and your budget. When you choose a printer, you are taking on a partner who will be closely involved in an important aspect of your work through filing day.  Before committing to a printer, you should ask a few questions to ensure that you make the right choice.

How long has your company been in business?

Quality work requires experience. Your brief printer should be more than just a website and a rule book. The task of evaluating and printing a quality brief demands the knowledge and resources that can only come from decades of experience in the brief printing business.

Will you proofread my brief to make sure I file the very best possible work? 

Proofreading is essential to a top-shelf Supreme Court filing. A two-person team of professional proofreaders gives your brief a thorough, line-by-line examination to alert you to potential errors.

Do you have experts to make sure my brief is rule-compliant? 

The Court will not docket your brief unless all of the required elements are present. An experienced staff of Supreme Court specialists needs to make sure you avoid the embarrassment of filing a non-compliant brief.

Will I see a proof the same day I send my draft? 

The quicker a brief printer can typeset and proofread your draft, the more time you can spend with your draft. And more time with a draft means more time to craft a perfect brief.

Do you have the flexibility to handle a large job or file on short notice? 

Your practice requires you to adapt to unforeseen circumstances and your brief printer should be able to keep pace when that happens. You need a printer that can handle an unexpectedly large job, or print and file a quality brief on an abbreviated schedule.

Will you review my camera-ready brief to make sure it complies with the rules—for free? 

Some experienced practitioners prefer to format the brief themselves. But it never hurts to have another set of eyes check the draft for compliance. And you shouldn’t have to pay for that.

Will someone be available to take my call during my work day, no matter what part of the country I am calling from? 

The planet is round, and it turns. This means that a business on the East Coast might be closing just as customers on the West Coast are returning from lunch. You should find a printer that is available to accommodate your schedule: from early in the day in New York to late in the day in Los Angeles.

Can you give me a good idea of my costs when I call, even if you haven’t seen the draft? 

Text in the Supreme Court format typically uses more pages than other common formats. If you can provide a general page count and a description of the original pages when you call, your brief printer should be able to give you a good sense of the final document’s length and your approximate printing costs.

After you see my draft, will you provide a detailed estimate of my costs before I commit to the job? 

After the pages come in, the brief printer should be able to compile a much more accurate cost estimate. And you should not have to commit to the work before you see an itemized estimate.

Can you give me a discount if I send my copy in a Word or WordPerfect file?

Brief printers use various methods to create a typeset draft, and original drafts in Word or WordPerfect can be more readily formatted. Those savings should be passed on to you.

Can you give me advice to help me eliminate unnecessary pages and reduce my costs? 

Every court has its own procedures and rules, and the Supreme Court is no different. The brief printer should be able to tell you what elements are required to make sure your brief is rule-compliant, and which are not, so you have the option to reduce your costs.