Personal Branding: Practicing in Federal vs. State Court

✏️ When I started practicing in 1996, I did labor arbitrations and NLRB proceedings. There, the gloves really came off. We threw around terms like “baseless,” “specious,” and “outrageous” to describe our opponents’ arguments.

—Those words were effective there (or so my partner-supervisors told me), but federal judges, I’ve come to learn, generally loathe these types of invectives.

▫️ In 1998-99, I transitioned to add trial court litigation. There, we were a little more polite, but not much. The number of boldface and italicized terms we used is sort of shocking in retrospect.

—I’d doubt I’d use emphasis that way today if I were litigating today, but it’s what I was taught to do then, and perhaps is still a trial-court norm? Do you use boldface italics for emphasis in your writing?

▫️ Over time, I came to practice greater numbers of federal-court appeals. I found appellate writing is far more polite.

▫️ And finally, I wrote for the U.S. Supreme Court. That was perhaps the most measured and respectful litigation writing of all.
____

My past observations seem consistent with my current experiences, too, as law firms will hire me to work with former judicial clerks.

There’s a definite transition clerks need to make to learn to write more like a zealous, trial-court advocate.

📬 Do any of my experiences and observations match your own?

📬 As a litigator, do you vary your tone and style to fit your forum?

I’m trying to understand all these dynamics better to help me best advise different kinds of lawyer-clients in their different kinds of legal writing.

Thank you for your input!

Fondly,

💌 Amanda