14.4.3 POLISHING THE BRIEF
Particularly if you are not allowed to seek faculty assistance, you must work hard to see the brief through others’ eyes as you edit and polish. Imagine that your most demanding professor is reading the brief.
What would he or she say? Where would he or she find weaknesses, unsupported arguments, or inadequate analysis? When you are proofreading, imagine your most demanding editor — perhaps a parent, a professor, or a significant other.The polishing advice given in Chapter Twelve applies here, but in some ways, perfection is even more important for a moot court brief than for any one professional brief. While your reputation will suffer over the long term if you consistently have small errors in your briefs, it would be extremely unusual for you to lose a case because of typographical errors, wrong font size, or some other minor error (of course, remember that cases can and have been dismissed because counsel missed deadlines or violated other significant court rules). In a close round in a moot court competition, in contrast, a few points off for citation form errors or for using the wrong font size can mean the difference between victory and defeat. Be sure to review the competition rules as part of your editing process.
Thus, take care with your proofreading. Be sure to leave enough time to allow you to reprint the brief after correcting errors. Also, be sure to read the brief from beginning to end, from the docket number to the certificate of service. I will always remember the team that sent out a brief with the word “certioari” on the cover. It did not advance past the first round.