"Not proper appellate advocacy"

The Third Circuit published this short opinion blasting poor appellate practice: 

 “Counsel for [appellants] Conboy and Gilsenan simply took the summary judgment section of his District Court brief and copied and pasted it into his appellate brief, with minor changes such as swapping ‘Defendant’ for ‘Appellee.’ Compare Appendix A hereto, with Appendix B. This is not proper appellate advocacy.”

FRAP 38 compensatory damages were imposed on appellate counsel, because the "attorney is to blame for recycling meritless arguments without engaging the District Court’s analysis."

It’s not easy to become a lawyer. The practice of law is challenging, and even the best lawyers make mistakes from time to time. So we err on the side of leniency toward the bar in close cases. But the copy-and-paste jobs before us reflect a dereliction of duty, not an honest mistake.

How Appealing also notes: “Law Reviews Are Living on Borrowed Time; Professors and judges feel free to disregard scholarship assessed and edited by students”: Law professor Stephen L. Carter has this essay online at Bloomberg Opinion