Petitioning the Supreme Court can be a daunting task. Careless writing, poor formatting, and ignorance of the Court’s rules can significantly decrease the odds that your petition will be selected for review. Filing a brief fraught with errors makes it nearly impossible to win any appeal. By developing a working knowledge of the essentials [...]
“Don’t look back, something might be gaining on you.” --Satchel Paige A couple of dangerous words legal brief writers use for looking back are “id.” and “supra.” Dangerous because what is usually gaining from one direction is a limit on words or pages (a word count under U.S. Supreme Court rules or a page limit [...]
If you’ve just lost your case in a federal circuit court of appeals or state court, you are likely weighing the pros and cons of appealing to the United States Supreme Court. In order to proceed judiciously, you need to decide if filing a cert. petition is right for you. Who can petition for certiorari? [...]
Day 1 10:00 AM: I’m emailed to Cockle, as scheduled. Right now, I’m a near-final draft of a legal brief in Microsoft Word (though WordPerfect is also acceptable). My text size, formatting, and margins don’t matter. I don’t even have page numbers yet. But over the next two days, I’ll be transformed into a [...]