I chair the Appellate Law Section of the Federation of Defense and Corporate Counsel. Members of our section recently put on a great program on how to make legal briefs more effective for judges and law clerks who read them on electronic devices rather than on paper. While the Massachusetts state appellate courts still have not implemented electronic filing, the SJC posts briefs online,  the First Circuit has electronic filing, and some judges and justices (or their law clerks) may be reading your brief on an iPad or other similar electronic device. When reading on such a device, people tend to skim the text more, looking for visual cues and parts of the text to focus on more intently. Here are a few tips I gleaned from the FDCC program on how to make your brief more effective for someone who is reading a brief on an electronic device:

  • Use more headings, lists, and bullet points to guide the reader.
  • Use shorter paragraphs, with well-crafted topic sentences.
  • Use summaries that not only provide a roadmap but explain your key points concisely.
  • Use more white space (although when you have a page limit, rather than a word limit, this can be challenging). Electronic readers tend to focus more on the top portion of a page, so if you can, you may want to place the most important content at the top of a new page rather than the end of the previous page.
  • Consider visual aids, such as a photograph, chart, or side-by-side comparison, where appropriate.
  • Consider using hyperlinks, internal or external. There likely will come a day when it is standard procedure required by court rules to provide direct links in briefs to cases cited and to the appendix.

Most of these tips were key features of strong paper briefs before the advent of electronic readers. I think it is now especially important to keep these tips in mind for every brief you write.

Photo of Wystan Ackerman Wystan Ackerman

Wystan Ackerman is a partner in Robinson+Cole’s Appellate Team. Wystan is admitted to practice in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York, the U.S. Supreme Court and various federal courts of appeals. He has briefed and argued appeals in the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court and…

Wystan Ackerman is a partner in Robinson+Cole’s Appellate Team. Wystan is admitted to practice in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York, the U.S. Supreme Court and various federal courts of appeals. He has briefed and argued appeals in the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court and Appeals Court, has successfully petitioned the SJC for further appellate review, and has also litigated interlocutory appeals before the Single Justice of the Appeals Court. He takes pride in writing briefs that are succinct and compelling, and preparing thoroughly for oral arguments. Wystan is often asked by his colleagues to serve as a “moot court” judge in practice arguments.

Wystan has also handled matters in the Supreme Court of the United States. He successfully petitioned the Supreme Court to grant certiorari in Standard Fire Insurance Company v. Knowles, 133 S. Ct. 1345 (2013), in which the Court unanimously rejected a plaintiff’s attempt to evade federal jurisdiction by stipulating that the amount sought would not exceed the $5 million threshold under the Class Action Fairness Act.

Wystan’s appellate practice is national in scope. Many of his appeals have involved class action and insurance cases. He has served as appellate counsel in the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Eighth and Eleventh Circuits, as well as in various state appellate and supreme courts. Wystan also regularly files amicus curiae (friend of the court) briefs in federal and state appellate courts. He currently chairs the Appellate Section of the Federation of Defense and Corporate Counsel (FDCC). Wystan has been listed as a Second Circuit Litigation Star in Benchmark Appellate (2013) and is listed in Benchmark Litigation (2013-2015).

Wystan received his B.A., summa cum laude, in Government and Legal Studies from Bowdoin College, where he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa. Wystan received his J.D. from Columbia Law School, where he was a James Kent Scholar and a member of the Columbia Law Review.

Read more about Wystan Ackerman
Show more Show less