Bloomberg Law has Appeals Judges Push to Clearly Allow Introductions in Briefs
Two federal judges are urging the judiciary to tweak a rule to explicitly allow lawyers to include an “introduction” section at the top of their appellate briefs. Judge Kevin Newsom and Chief Judge William Pryor, both of the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, said in a letter that introductions are effectively lawyers’ “elevator pitch,” in that it “briefly introduces the dispute, tees up the key issues, and explains why they should be resolved in a particular way.” They’re asking the Advisory Committee on Appellate Rules to modify an existing rule “to permit—and perhaps subtly encourage” lawyers to lead with introductions in their written arguments....
While introductions aren’t banned under the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure, they aren’t explicitly allowed either. .... that can lead to clerks’ offices rejecting briefs for violating court rules.