In a video interview with legal writing expert Bryan Garner, Judge Alex Kozinski, Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, explains why lawyers should not use block quotes in their briefs.
According to Kozinski, lawyers shouldn’t let quotes do the work for them; if there is important information that should be brought to the judge’s attention, the lawyer should tell the judge what that is, not bury it inside of a block quote. Kozinski states that when he runs across a block quote in a brief, he doesn’t read it – he just skips over it. Lawyers who use block quotes, he believes, are just being lazy in their writing.
Click here for the full interview.
