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Briefs and Oral Arguments: What’s Worst of the Worst?

Posted Jun 30, 2009, 09:56 am CDT
By Sarah Randag

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia can always be counted on to let you know what he really thinks. And even though you think lawyers would bring their A game to oral arguments and briefs they put before Scalia (he did write the book on the art of persuading judges, after all), he had a litany of pet peeves to share at the Texas Bar Association's annual meeting last week. In oral arguments, lawyers should pronounce words correctly, or Scalia will be "inclined to think this person is not the sharpest pencil in the box." And Scalia thinks briefs that use italics excessively read "like a high school girl’s diary."

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