And many other idiosyncratic capitalization requirements that bosses like to point out with a red pencil. The problem may seem trivial, but it is not. Knowing when to capitalize the âc in court and when to leave it lowercase is a matter of jurisdiction. It seemed likely that if my students needed help with the capitalization rules in legal documents, my colleagues reading this column would also need help. Fortunately, my source of legal writing style, the Aspen Handbook for Legal Writers, contains an excellent summary of capitalization rules for some of the most commonly used words by legal writers. [i] I have “summarized” the summary below, taken some examples from the manual, and added some of my own. All commentators agree that the words “plaintiff” and “defendant” should be capitalized when referring to specific parties in the case being written. Do we know why so many courts do not take this rule into account? However, “little things” like capitalization affect our readers` overall impression of our work. For a perfectionist (which many of our legal readers are), an inconsistent capitalization can indicate at best that we are careless and, at worst, that we are not familiar with the rules of capitalization. This, in turn, may indicate negligence or ignorance in our analysis, which affects the reader`s view of our credibility. Luckily for my students and for you as a practitioner, these capitalization rules are pretty intuitive, and once you start focusing on them in your design, you can learn them quickly.
So it`s an easy way to improve the overall efficiency of your writing. Below are the capitalization rules for words commonly used in legal writing. This list is not exhaustive, and the reference to Bluebook Rule 8, the Government Printing Office Style Manual, or the Gregg Reference Manual is useful. As a professor of legal writing, one of my goals is to inspire my students to strive for excellence in their work. But this month, when I was thinking about what to say in this column, it was my students who inspired me. At the end of February, they submitted their drafts to their final task, and as I read, I noticed that their capitalization of some words was very inconsistent, not only from draft to draft, but even from page to draft. @Lee – I agree. I tell students that they are simply replacing the party`s first name with the party`s legal category.
They would not say, “Plaintiff Ludke alleges Smith committed theft by a contractor.” In addition, Bluebook rule B7.3.2 shows an example where the “the” is omitted. It is true that it is common for these terms to be capitalized and used without articles in many legal writing examples, and the example of the Bluebook seems to support this approach. My co-author Laurel Oates and I have had the article included and deleted in the writings of many lawyers and judges. Nevertheless, the general rules for English articles are clear as to when they should be used with names in such situations, and we think that`s why so many readers find it shocking to see the plaintiff or defendant being used without articles. A question of capitalization. How can I deal with the following? In defense of my students, we hadn`t spent a lot of class time capitalizing, because in the grand scheme of things, it`s not as important to good legal writing as content, structure, and readability. And at the design stage, I didn`t expect perfection, and I didn`t “evaluate” their capitalization. I`m sure in the final pleadings, which are in a huge pile on my side table at home, most of the capitalization inconsistencies have been corrected.
When referring to a title or title in legal writing, capitalize all words except articles, conjunctions, or prepositions of four letters or less, unless the article, conjunction or preposition is the first word of the title or the word immediately after two periods. Laura Graham, associate director of legal analysis, writing and research, is an associate professor of legal writing at Wake Forest University`s School of Law, where she has taught for 15 years. It welcomes readers` emails at [email protected]. Is the capitalization correct in the following quotation marks? Like The Bluebook, the California Style Manual requires the capitalization of courts when it uses only a portion of the official names of the U.S. Supreme Court and U.S. courts of appeals, such as “the ninth circle.” And like the Bluebook, the California Style Manual tells us to keep the dish in lower case when we refer to a dish or dishes in general. For example, “the Circuit Court”, “the Federal Courts of Appeals” or “The High Court” On the one hand, it is quite analogous to a pleading or application by a party to the court. On the other hand, the employee or intern does not need to stroke the judge`s ego and does not write official and public communication with the court. Rule 7.3.1. and Rule 8 of the Blue Book: A Unified Citation System requires us to capitalize the word “court” in all written submissions and other legal documents filed in federal courts in these cases: I think the best answer here is to say, use your best judgment.
The custom in your field of activity may be to omit the definite article. In this case, it may be more convenient for you and your briefing reader to continue omitting the definite article. Or maybe you want to create the feeling that your writing is more formal, in which case adding the definite article would help create that sense of formality. (c) In the legal documents, with regard to the court to which the document is submitted: I agree. I may have seen, “In her application for dismissal, she argued that the deadline had passed.” But I`m sure I`ve never seen, “The applicant is seeking a protection order because of the incriminating nature of the disclosure requested.” I think the order is always capitalized, and if it is a protection order, then the protection is also capitalized. And in my first example, there would certainly be nothing wrong with capitalizing the motion to dismiss. Good question! The Blue Book does not give a specific answer here. The general rule for uppercase titles in Bluebook, rule 8(a), is that you must capitalize the title.
(“Claim of Infringement of Count I”) You can also consult the analogous rule for capitalizing court documents in B7.3.3 (the blue pages). In my experience, capitalizing the title of an action is also the common custom. The Florida Supreme Court investigated an alleged violation of the employee`s constitutional rights. (1) if you are referring to the U.S. Supreme Court, even if you are only using part of the name However, the Blue Book also includes the examples “the Court” and “the Agency,” which also replace proper nouns with common capitalized nouns. Section 8. In these examples, as well as in other examples in Rule 8, the specific article is always used. Regarding the use of the authoritative article “the”: In many pleadings, as in many contracts, it is common, but perhaps incorrect, to define different entities that may be mentioned repeatedly in the pleading. Example: “This motion is made in contradiction with the motion to dismiss the defendant John Brown (“Brown” or “defendant”). In that case, the defendant was defined as a defendant, and the author would use only the descriptive name throughout the argument: “The plaintiff objects to the defendant`s description of.” It seems that the two document titles in your question are the actual titles, so if they are part of the pending action, you need to capitalize them.
Learn in detail about California`s rules on when and when should not be capitalized in court or tribunal by reviewing the lists of correct examples in the California Style Manual, sections 4:1 and 4:2. ► Daniel B. Rodriquez, Regulatory Incrementalism and Moral Choices: A Comment on Adlerian Welfarism, 28 Fʟᴀ. Sᴛ. U. L. Rᴇᴠ. 375 (2000). (3) If you refer to the court before which you appear, no matter how low, I am a hearing officer for an administrative authority and I write about the hearings I give.
Do I call events a hearing or a hearing? Obviously, I use capital letters in the title. But in the body of the statement, where I say: “At the hearing, the tenant testified. I usually used lowercase. It`s true? In which cases would “Federal Court” be capitalized? 03/03/2020- Arrested by Illinois State Police for driving under the influence of alcohol. Note that if you are referring to a party without adding its last name, add the word “the”. See Anne Enquist & Laurel Oates, Just Writing 265 (3rd edition 2009). Example: “Plaintiff Ludke alleges that defendant committed theft by contractor.” This was a security video with instructions for accessing the encrypted information it contains in the store, as well as instructions that can be viewed after he has not received the requested copy of the prosecution`s security video/documents necessary to establish the defendant`s defense. <Smith asked the court to grant his request for summary judgment against Jones. The Just Writing rule that applies is Rule 3 of Chapter 10 on page 263: Use the definite article "the" with both counting and non-counting names if the specific identity of the name is clear to the reader. I wouldn`t use reason 3 on superlatives and rank adjectives, because we often have neither plaintiff nor defendant with words. Reason 1 is rather the best explanation: readers know the specific identity of a name after it has already been used once in a certain context.
I was wondering if the name of the action should be capitalized in a count. Would I write, “The court should dismiss the plaintiff`s claim for breach of contract” or should it be “Count I of breach of contract”?.
