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Requirements And Suggestions For Typography In Briefs And Other Papers - Official Federal Forms
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REQUIREMENTS AND SUGGESTIONS FOR TYPOGRAPHY IN BRIEFS AND OTHER PAPERS Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 32 contains detailed requirements for the production of briefs, motions, appendices, and other papers that will be presented to the judges. Rule 32 is designed not only to make documents more readable but also to ensure that different methods of reproduction (and different levels of technological sophistication among lawyers) do not affect the length of a brief. The following information may help you better understand Rule 32 and associated local rules. The Committee Note to Rule 32 provides additional helpful information. This section of the handbook also includes some suggestions to help you make your submissions more legible--and thus more likely to be grasped and retained. In days gone past lawyers would send their work to printers, who knew the tricks of that trade. Now composition is in-house, done by people with no education in printing. Some of the printer's toolkit is simple to use, however. Subsection 5, below, contains these hints. 1. Rule 32(a)(1)(B) requires text to be reproduced with "a clarity that equals or exceeds the output of a laser printer." The resolution of a laser printer is expressed in dots per inch. First generation laser printers broke each inch into 300 dots vertically and horizontally, creating characters from this 90,000-dot matrix. Second generation laser printers use 600 or 1200 dots per inch in each direction and thus produce a sharper, more easily readable output; commercial typesetters use 2400 dots per inch. Any means of producing text that yields 300 dots per inch or more is acceptable. Daisy-wheel, typewriter, commercial printing, and many ink-jet printers meet this standard, as do photocopies of originals produced by these methods. Dot matrix printers and fax machines use lower resolution, and their output is unacceptable. Although Rule 32(a) applies only to briefs and motions, we urge counsel to maintain this standard of clarity in appendices. A faxed copy of the district court's opinion, or text from Lexis or Westlaw printed by a dot-matrix printer, is needlessly hard to read. Use photocopies of the district court's original opinion and other documents in the record. 2. Rule 32(a)(5) distinguishes between proportional and monospaced fonts, and between serif and sans-serif type. It also requires knowledge of points and pitch. Proportionally spaced type uses different widths for different characters. Most of this handbook is in proportionally spaced type. A monospaced face, by contrast, uses the same width for each character. Most typewriters produce monospaced type, and most computers also can do so using fonts with names such as "Courier," "Courier New," or "Andale Mono." The rule leaves to each lawyer the choice between proportional and monospaced type. -1American LegalNet, Inc. www.USCourtForms.com This sentence is in a proportionally spaced font; as you can see, the m and i have different widths. This sentence is in a monospaced font; as you can see, the m and i have the same width. Serifs are small horizontal or vertical strokes at the ends of the lines that make up the letters and numbers. The next line shows two characters enlarged for detail. The first has serifs, the second does not. Studies have shown that long passages of serif type are easier to read and comprehend than long passages of sans-serif type. The rule accordingly limits the principal sections of submissions to serif type, although sans-serif type may be used in headings and captions. This is the same approach magazines, newspapers, and commercial printers take. Look at a professionally printed brief; you will find sans-serif type confined to captions, if it is used at all. This sentence is in New Century Schoolbook, a proportionally spaced font with serifs. Baskerville, Bookman, Caslon, Garamond, Georgia, and Times are other common serif faces. This sentence is in Helvetica, a proportionally spaced sans-serif font. Arial, Eurostile, Trebuchet, Univers, and Verdana are other common sans-serif faces. Variations of these names imply similar type designs. Type must be large enough to read comfortably. For a monospaced face, this means type approximating the old "pica" standard used by typewriters, 10 characters per horizontal inch, rather than the old "elite" standard of 12 characters per inch. Because some computer versions of monospaced type do not come to exactly 10 characters per inch, Rule 32(a)(5)(B) allows up to 10½ per inch, or 72 characters (including punctuation and spaces) per line of type. Proportionally spaced characters vary in width, so a limit of characters per line is not practical. Instead the rules require a minimum of 12-point type. Circuit Rule 32 permits the use of 12-point type in text and 11-point type in footnotes; Fed. R. App. P. 32(a)(5)(A) standing alone would have required you to use 14-point type throughout. "Point" is a printing term for the height of a character. There are 72 points to the inch, so capital letters of 12-point type are a sixth of an inch tall. This advice is in 12-point type. Your type may be larger than 12 points, but it cannot be smaller. See Circuit Rule 32(b). Word processing and page layout programs can expand or condense the type using tracking controls, or you may have access to a condensed version of the face (such as Garamond Narrow). Do not use these. Condensed type is prohibited by Rule 32(a)(6). It offers no benefit to counsel under an approach that measures the length of briefs in YY -2American LegalNet, Inc. www.USCourtForms.com words rather than pages, and it is to your advantage to make the brief as legible as possible. This is 9-point type. This is 10-point type. This is 11-point type. This is 12-point type. This is 12-point type, condensed. Condensed type is not acceptable. This is 13-point type. This is 14-point type. 3. Rule 32(a)(6) provides that the principal type must be a plain, roman style. In other words, the main body of the document cannot be bold, italic, capitalized, underlined, narrow, or condensed. This helps to keep the brief or motion legible. Italics or underlining may be used only for case names or occasional emphasis. Boldface and all-caps text should be used sparingly. 4. Rule 32(a)(7) determines the maximum length of a brief. It permits you to present as much argument as a 50-page printed brief. The variability of proportionally spaced type makes it necessary to express this l
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