Appellate Lawyer? Better Read the Rules
We suggest that the court consider adding a certification in appellate practice.
May 28, 2023 at 10:00 AM
3 minute read
The March 6 edition of this paper included a page one article entitled "'Harass Us Over Minutae': Courts Are Rejecting Briefs—And Lawyers Aren't Happy" in which some attorneys took exception to what they believe is an overzealous implementation by the clerk's office of R.2:6. A particularly voluble attorney interviewed for this article admittedly had one brief returned with 10 deficiencies, including failure to include an email address, failure to include a table of contents with point headings, failure to note where in the record an issue was referenced or a notation that the issue was not raised, failure to note in the procedural history the page of all documents referenced in the appendix and exceeding the maximum 60 character per line requirement, complaining that the clerk's office must have "hired a bunch of people to harass us over minutiae." Those problems could have been avoided simply by reading the rules before preparing or filing the brief. If confusion remained, the attorney would have recourse by calling the case manager assigned to the appeal to straighten out any unresolved questions. As another interviewee commented, if "you can't deal with reasonable rules, you shouldn't be doing appellate work." If a close review of R.2:6 and a call to the clerk managing the appeal still left the attorney baffled, it might be explained to the client that appellate rules are just too difficult to understand or too time consuming for an attorney of limited experience in appellate work, and why an attorney with adequate experience in that field should be retained.
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