Appellate Briefs of the Future
UT State and Federal Appeals CLE ()In early 2010, the Texas Supreme Court ordered all counsel to provide PDF courtesy copies with each petition or merits brief. That order specified that these PDF e-briefs could not just be scanned, but rather had to be natively generated and to include the required appendix items.
As the Court told us, they were laying the foundation for an eventual shift toward e-filing. In the meantime, the new order made filing a brief more complicated — but it also opened the way for counsel to create richer e-briefs using hyperlinks or bookmarks.
Our presentation talked about the requirements of the rule, the possibilities and dangers now open to advocates, and offered educated guesses about how these briefs might evolve over time.
Related:
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My white paper on making e-briefs: “How to make simple PDF e-briefs for the Texas Supreme Court” (SCOTXblog)
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“Today’s CLE presentation on electronic briefs” (SCOTXblog)
