alt Hacker NewsMy preferred font for federal work. Sadly all Florida appellate documents must be set in 14-point Arial or Bookman Old Style — a choice in name only.
One would think that by now we'd have a way to draft and file litigation papers in plain text, perhaps with some light markup, and then the courts could automatically generate cover pages, case styles, and tables of contents and authorities; each judge could apply his own preferred styling for working with it (like a LaTeX class file); and the courts could make the official document available to the public in html and pdf versions in whatever typesetting they deem appropriate. (Even better if the public could choose the format — CSS, perhaps.)
Instead we have ever-shifting rules and standards for compliance, which vary by jurisdiction, and which waste inestimable time, energy, and expense for rules committees, lawyers, administrative staff, printers, and, of course, clients.
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I sure do like the way the Supreme Court sets its type [0]. I’d always imagined it must be laid out in the way you describe, with a LaTeX transform or something—it sounds like it’s really a manual kind of affair?
Of course the first comment I find upon searching is another of Matthew Butterick’s [1], in which he agrees that it’s Real Nice, and points out that the Supreme Court does not allow documents using Times New Roman to be filed there at all!
I don’t even mind that he’s writing this in his capacity as a fontmonger: if all SEO-type writing were at this level of quality and obsession, I’d be much less grumpy about it.
[0] https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/21-869_87ad.pdf
> each judge could apply his own preferred styling for working with it
imagine going to court and the judge has mandated that all documents be prepared using 18pt Jokerman[0], or that all headings must use Bleeding Cowboys[1].
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jokerman_(typeface)
[1] https://www.dafont.com/bleeding-cowboys.fontThe plain text idea is brilliant and something I've been thinking about for a while. If they could do this, it would reduce storage and transmission costs of the courts various case management systems. I would increase the speed of the CMS systems. It would enable searchability and allow all readers and writers to render documents according to their preferences. Instead of scanned PDFs, they could have web forms with validation to make sure submissions are correct. This could be the future, if someone in law has some tech know how and vision.
> each judge could apply his own preferred styling for working with it
It kind of makes sense to ensure that everyone is seeing the same thing, though, which is something PDF is (relatively) good at.
After filing multiple motions and appeals in my divorce case, I fell in love with Bookman Old Style font. All my docs written now that require my signature, are all done in it. I agree with others saying to ditch Times New Roman, give a try to Bookman Old Style.
How many different courts does the typical attorney interact with? While it would be ideal if all courts used the same standards, that courts in very different jurisdictions have different format preferences doesn't seem like a big deal. If you're a real estate attorney in central Florida, are the requirements of the counties you operate in different and then the state courts different too? That seems like it would be somewhat of a hassle.
Some courts publish word processing templates for briefs; for example, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit: https://www.ca4.uscourts.gov/court-forms-fees/brief-template...
The Eighth Circuit gets really into this, publishing a typography guide for lawyers: https://federalcourt.press/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Eighth...
Judges, particularly appellate judges, spend a lot of their time reading briefs. So, as you can see, some of them have strong opinions about brief typography. (Judges, as a group, have strong opinions about lots of things).