Law Clerk Advice to Litigants/Pet Peeves Forum

[coramnonjudice]

Going back to litigating in federal court soon, and it made me wonder whether you all developed any pet peeves as far as litigants' behavior during your time as a law clerk? For instance, if a defendant filed a dispositive motion and attached only a portion of a deposition that was framed in a misleading way? Or if parties made ex parte calls to chambers making demands?

[nixy]

If parties called chambers making ex parte demands they wouldn’t have to worry about my (the clerk’s) reaction, they’d get reamed by my judge.

I also kind of learned to assume that everything attached was framed in a misleading way.

[Anonymous User]

I've been surprised by how many lawyers blow right through the page limits, especially on reply briefs.

[HillandHollow]

Please read the local rules and check for any judge-specific rules. We won't really throw things out for not following our formatting guidelines, but it definitely annoys everyone.

Please do not call or email chambers to "ask a question" when you are actually trying to ex parte inform us of whatever thing opposing counsel did.

[Elston Gunn]

Nothing made me roll my eyes more than briefs that spent any time implying that the other side were idiots and/or assholes. Just make your arguments. Having litigated actual cases now, I get it, but the judge and clerks really don’t care.

[HillandHollow]

Nothing made me roll my eyes more than briefs that spent any time implying that the other side were idiots and/or assholes. Just make your arguments. Having litigated actual cases now, I get it, but the judge and clerks really don’t care.

+1, it annoys me to no end when parties do this, and makes me think less of them.

[nixy]

It usually made me laugh, but it did make me think they were whiners.

[Lacepiece23]

It always annoyed me when boomer lawyers would scan in their documents in stead of converting the native document to a PDF. Or, even worse, scanning in a PDF rather than just attaching the original PDF. It would make ctrl-fing a brief unreliable because the OCR tool for a scanned in brief is unreliable. I remember having to actually read an entire insurance policy to make sure I didn't miss anything because it was scanned in.