Unlike appellate courts, trial courts do not always specify the requirements for motion briefs.
Many say only that a “memorandum of points and authorities” must accompany the motion, or that the brief should state “the concise facts, the grounds for the motion and the authorities relied on.” In practice, however, counsel filing dispositive motions often submit briefs that closely resemble appellate briefs.
This chapter identifies segments that may appear in effective motion briefs, and a sample following this format appears in Appendix C. Note that while pagination rules for appellate briefs often indicate use of small roman numerals on pages containing introductory material, you should paginate a motion brief with Arabic numerals unless court rules designate otherwise.In practice, the party filing the responsive brief—generally the plaintiff, for a motion brief—may be allowed to omit certain segments of the brief (e.g., the fact statement) if he or she agrees with the other party as to that information. In most law school settings, however, students on each side of the case are required to complete all segments of the document for pedagogical reasons. Whether in practice or in class, you must learn and follow the local rules.