Moot Court, Clerkships & Chambers
Competition briefs, citing at the lectern, and the court’s own style in chambers.
One case can be cited three right ways in the same week. Your moot court brief follows the manual and edition the rulebook names. At the lectern nobody sees your punctuation, so you say the case name and point to pages. In chambers, the judge and the court’s reporter of decisions set the form. Below, a New York Court of Appeals decision as New York’s Official Reports print it: a form built for those reports, not for every brief.
A case in a court’s own opinion style (New York Official Reports)
(Matter of Jacob, 86 NY2d 651 [1995]).
- 1 here wholly in parentheses; running text also works
- 2 case title as the Official Reports give it: “Matter of”, not “In re”
- 3 volume, period-free reporter, first page
- 4 year in brackets; no court, since NY2d is the Court of Appeals
- 5 period outside when it backs one sentence
11.1Three rooms, three rulebooks
In the print and Kindle editions
11.2Competition briefs: the rulebook is your court
In the print and Kindle editions
11.3At the lectern: citing aloud and pointing to pages
In the print and Kindle editions
11.4New authority on the day of argument
In the print and Kindle editions
11.5In chambers: bench memos, drafts and the judge’s way
In the print and Kindle editions
11.6The court’s own style manual
In the print and Kindle editions
11.7Opinion style versus brief style, full and short
In the print and Kindle editions
11.8Errors to catch
In the print and Kindle editions