Briefs (In Legal Terms)

Dudley, Sean. Montana YMCA and Youth Government. Accessed Wednesday, October 27, 2010.  http://home.mcn.net/~montanabw/briefsmpl.html

For my second workplace document I looked at a sample appellate brief filed with the Supreme Court of the state of Montana. Briefs are legal document prepared by a party to the Court. It contains information on the facts of the case, the legal issues to be decided, the law that the Court ought to apply, and the decision the party desires the Court to reach (Dudley). I retrieved this document from Montana YMCA Youth and Government website. This site contains a lot of useful information, sample documents, case facts, and other information that helps future or current members of the legal field get a better understand of work as it relates to their field.  This particular brief though has one particular purpose it serves as a model for how to write an appellate brief in the court of the state of Montana. While this is the intended purpose of this document it may also be used by other members of this field no matter the state they reside in because in most instances briefs follow a universal format. Although, there may be minor changes depending on the court and state in which the attorney is preparing it for. 

Briefs are very structured and particular in their formatting. The first element of the brief should be the title page which contains the place and state in which the brief is prepared as shown in the sample document “IN THE YMCA MODEL SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF MONTANA.” The case number(s), name of the appellant and the respondent as stated in the case, identification of the brief as being that of the Appellant or the Respondent, court from which the case originated, notation that an oral argument is requested, name and address (either home or school is acceptable) of Attorneys appearing before the court (in a real brief, the opposing council is known in advance and their names are also included). Second, comes the table of contents which includes is a separate, single page that lists each element of the brief and the corresponding page number.  The arguments are the bread and butter of briefs and are therefore also listed with bold font and corresponding page numbers in the table of contents page. Third is the Table of Authorities page. The table of authorities in this model is a list of about a page long and contains all materials used to support the argument. Traditionally this page includes every page in the brief where the particular excerpt is found. It is similar to the bibliography of a term paper, except that the citation format is different, and cases are usually grouped by type (e.g.state statute, case law, etc.). Fourth comes the statement of the issue which is a very short introductory statement of the legal issues or points of law involved in the case. The fifth and preceding statement is the statement of facts which is a retelling of the facts from the client's point of view. This section should be a minimum of one page, but, should not exceed two pages (Dudley). The sixth element of a brief is the actual argument. This is the core of the brief and is designed somewhat like writing a persuasive essay with lots of research references. It presents support for the issues presented earlier. Solid research is used to back every part of the argument. Arguments must be well-organized and convincing; attorneys will win or lose their case based on the quality and substance of what is said in this section. The last part of the brief is the conclusion section. This is where the Attorney team summarizes their argument and specifically states the result desired. The conclusion in a Model Supreme Court brief can be as short as one sentence, and should not exceed a single short paragraph (Dudley). Immediately behind the conclusion statements are the signatures of the Attorney team.

This is a sample or rather a model document of an appellate brief. As I have actually seen and handled a brief document for the state of Virginia before I must say it is very accurate. Every element listed within this sample document is factual. This was a great workplace document to analyze and I found it very informative.