Don’t Cheat on Me: The Healthy Way to Meet Word and Page Limits

Written by Ross Guberman on June 27, 2020

A court recently sanctioned counsel for Amazon for fiddling with formatting rules to squeeze in more words. The new filing is excellent, but even the revision could have been tighter.

Thirteen examples from BriefCatch’s five-second review:

  1. “And cases are legion where courts . . . “ = “Many courts have . . . “

  2. “motion is devoid of evidence” = “motion lacks evidence”

  3. “even assuming” = “even if”

  4. “in an attempt to sidestep” = “to sidestep”

  5. “relied upon” = “on”

  6. “not excused by the fact that” = “not excused because”

  7. “respondents who were involved in the acquisition of” = “respondents involved in acquiring”

  8. “courts have specifically distinguished “= cut “specifically”

  9. “fails for four independent reasons” = “for four reasons”

  10. balance of hardships is decidedly in Amazon’s favor = “favors Amazon”

  11. “ . . . therefore that” = “ . . . so that”

  12. Cut almost every “Here,” before “CafeX” or “Amazon”

  13. Cut 90+ percent of the “Moreovers” and “Furthers”

 

Ross Guberman

Ross Guberman

Ross Guberman is the president of Legal Writing Pro LLC and the founder of BriefCatch LLC. From Alaska and Hawaii to Paris and Hong Kong, Ross has conducted thousands of workshops on three continents for prominent law firms, judges, agencies, corporations, and associations. His workshops are among the highest rated in the world of professional legal education.

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