For litigators, copying is a tricky thing. Every lawyer has at least enough familiarity with the principles of plagiarism to know that, as a general rule, one should not copy another person's words ...

Good legal writing is a lot more than simply getting the law right. The year 2025 has been a very busy one for me in terms of drafting legal briefs on some issue or another. This means that not only ...

This summer, while your attention may have been understandably ­focused elsewhere, the Superior Court of Pennsylvania issued two noteworthy decisions offering brief-writing and issue selection advice.

It is basic, but critical, to persuade the court that the result you seek is the right result. The court has to feel good about ruling in favor of your client. As Judge Gurfein of the Second Circuit ...

Legal writing, or any writing for that matter, is a mentally demanding and complex activity requiring sustained effort and attention. Lawyers often face difficulty in providing that effort and ...

Polished legal briefs can hide fabricated citations and misleading claims. BriefCatch's expanded suite helps flag those ...

No matter how good the technology is, a virtual appellate oral argument is different from a live one. No matter how good an oral advocate you are, your virtual argument likely will not be quite as ...

We have a long history of judges saying that (1) little errors in a brief betoken bigger mistakes, (2) less is more, and (3) good briefs demand little physical or mental effort from the reader. Even ...

The primary function of the appellate court is to consider errors of law committed by the trial judge. Advocacy in the appellate court is an art unto itself. John W. Davis, Esq., a great appellate ...

Law360, New York ( March 4, 2016, 12:39 PM EST) -- This two-part series is a "primer" for effective brief writing when making a motion. It suggests practical considerations — "do's" and "don'ts" — ...