Poor practice on display

One way to lose an appeal is to not file an acceptable opening brief that does what a brief should do. Two cases in point today. First, this unpub from the 3d, which points out that the:

• opening briefs do not comply with the requirements of appellate advocacy in California. Specifically, there are no headings in the argument portions of appellants’ opening briefs, leaving it for us to speculate about which issues are being raised. That is not our role.  
•  This failure to provide appropriate headings is more than a mere technicality. The failure to set forth each argument in accordance with the California Rules of Court forfeits all of [Appellants'] issues discussed or referenced but not clearly identified by a heading.  
• Further, appellants also fail to provide legal analysis of the trial court’s determination .... While their briefs summarize the applicable law, they do not provide any legal analysis and this too results in the forfeiture of these issues on appeal. 

Next, there "the case of the missing CT" in this unpub from 1/1:

• Respondents maintain the judgment can, and should be, affirmed on the ground the Trans have failed to provide a record on appeal demonstrating the trial court erred.  We agree the Trans’ appellate briefing is bereft of intelligible record cites, preventing this court from engaging in any meaningful review of their claims on appeal.
• Some factual statements in the Trans’ briefing are purportedly supported by citations to a “CT.”  But as respondents point out, no clerk’s transcript was designated in this case.
• the Trans designated as the record on appeal an appendix under California Rules of Court, rule 8.124 and a reporter’s transcript.  They filed no appendix and a partial reporter’s transcript. 
• Furthermore, many of the factual statements in their briefing are unsupported by any citation, let alone a citation to a nonexistent clerk’s transcript.  
• And other paragraphs, despite being numerous sentences in length, have only a single purported record citation at the end of the paragraph.  Rule 8.204(a)(1)(C) of the California Rules of Court requires all appellate briefs to support any reference to a matter in the record by a citation to the volume and page number of the record where the matter appears.
• We further observe that other shortcomings in the Trans’ challenge to the judgment are apparent from the face of their briefing. 
• In short, the Trans have submitted briefs that by all accounts are not faithful to the record, disregard the proper standard of review, and are lacking in any reasoned analysis of the evidence.

In contrast, for an example of great practice, see CLA’s “Fillable Form” Briefs Approved by Judicial Council to learn about how the Committee on Appellate Courts advanced access to appellate justice.