8.1 LENGTH REQUIREMENTS
Probably the most significant format mistake that lawyers make is to fail to follow required length limits. Unfortunately, some lawyers see an imposed length limit as a sort of challenge, and they turn the limit into a goal.
Most courts design their limits to accommodate even complex cases that require lengthy analysis of each issue. Your goal as a writer should be to write enough about each issue to answer the question that issue presents and to give the reader confidence that your answer is correct. Lawyers do not win any points from judges for padding simple arguments, making the same point in two or three different point heading sections, or describing five cases where one would make the point. On the contrary, most judges are grateful to read a brief that makes its points effectively and then stops.6All of this is not to say that you should give the court only a cursory description of your arguments. Presume that your readers are intelligent, but that they are ignorant of the particulars of the case currently before the court. Your brief should give enough details about your case, and about the cases and other authorities that you cite, for the members of the court to understand your analysis without having to resort to other documents. Of course, they might understand things more deeply if they read all of the cases or reviewed the entire record, but your job is not to give them the same in-depth knowledge of the case that you have. Rather, you should perform a cost-benefit analysis vis-à-vis the information that you provide. For example, a brief case description will give the court a reasonable understanding of the authority and will take two or three sentences. A lengthy case description may take two or three paragraphs, but in most situations, it will not provide any more needed insight than a two-or-three sentence description.
Courts may express a length limit as a page limit, a word limit, or both. The Local Rules of King County, Washington, for example, limit motions for summary judgment and supporting memoranda to 8,400 words; Rule 32(a)(7) of the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure limits a principal appellate brief to 30 pages (with certain typeface restrictions) or 13,000 words. The page limits on briefs may vary depending on what category a brief falls into. Briefs on dispositive motions generally have higher page limits; for example, Rule 3.1113(d) of the 2014 California Rules of Court specifies that a supporting memorandum for a summary judgment or summary adjudication motion is limited to 20 pages, while memoranda for all other motions are limited to 15 pages.