Careful editing might seem a mere perfectionist’s obsession. But it’s more than that. Appellate Justices spend most of their working lives reading and writing. That is their livelihood, so they take it seriously. Typos and the like stop them in their tracks – breaking their absorption of the substance of your argument. Not good.
And, when a judge sees a stupid typo, she might begin to wonder about how careful you are on the substance of the brief – your factual assertions, your discussion of cases, and your basic arguments. If the brief is sloppy in form, maybe it’s sloppy in substance too. All are in question, just because you skimmed over the last task.
Law360 has Newman, Fed. Circ. Committee Call Mediation 'Unsuccessful'; Bloomberg Law's story is 96-Year-Old Judge Deadlocks With Appeals Panel on Fitness Probe
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