Lawyers and Word Limits

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/17/opinion/lawyers-and-word-limits.html

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To the Editor:

Re “Brevity in Briefs? Lawyers Register Their Objections” (Business Day, Oct. 4):

Appellate lawyers face a Catch-22 with these word constraints. Yes, ideally you would present only the strongest issues on appeal. But you also owe a duty to your client to preserve appellate issues, which means that those issues must be included in the brief.

Not including an issue runs the risk of the court’s deeming it waived. Not presenting it thoroughly enough runs the risk of the court’s deciding that it wasn’t fully presented.

But spending too many words on it runs the risk of diluting your stronger issues.

DANIELA ELLIOTT

New York

The writer is a lawyer.