In which cases would “Federal Court” be capitalized? @Lee – I agree. I tell students that they are simply replacing the party`s first name with the party`s legal category. They would not say, “Plaintiff Ludke alleges Smith committed theft by a contractor.” In addition, Bluebook rule B7.3.2 shows an example where the “the” is omitted. Confused? Me too, and it seems that this feeling is shared more widely, with two tips (or advice?)!! I made inquiries recently, and everyone has a different opinion on it. However, the modern trend is towards cleaner and easier writing and less capitalization, so when in doubt, perhaps the safest bet is to sin on the side of the tiny alternative. The use of APPLICANT capitalization is an archaic style that is still used by many practitioners. In general, the use of capital letters for party designations follows the same rule as above, in which only active parties capitalized their designations in this case. But should you use capital letters? Similarly, for terms such as “plaintiff”, “defendant”, “plaintiff”, “defendant”, “appellant”, it could be argued that this fundamental principle of capitalization requires that words be capitalized when referring to the specific plaintiff or defendant and that lowercase letters be used when words are commonly used to describe the group of persons. Based on this fundamental principle, the words “decision”, “application” and legal documents (e.g. “claim”, “defence”) may be capitalized when describing a particular document; but in lower case when used to generically describe a class of actions or documents. For example: It`s really helpful, especially the “state” capitalization rule, which also happens often here in federal court. I would recommend that if you`re not sure about capitalizing or if the blue book isn`t clear, at least be consistent.
You`d probably be better off making a mistake on the capital side, and if you do, don`t forget to capitalize on it in your memo or briefing. I agree. I may have seen, “In her application for dismissal, she argued that the deadline had passed. But I`m sure I`ve never seen: “The applicant is seeking a protection order because of the incriminating nature of the disclosure requested. I think the order is always capitalized, and if it`s a protection order, then the protection is also uppercase. And in my first example, there would certainly be nothing wrong with capitalizing the motion to dismiss. Capitalization of plaintiff, defendant and court if (1) you are the plaintiff, defendant or court in the case in which you are litigating, or (2) you use the court to refer to the United States. Supreme Court: If you are referring to the plaintiff in your case, the Blue Book says that the word “plaintiff” should be used. If you are referring to one or more complainants in general or to a plaintiff from another case (for example, whom you are quoting), the lowercase letter “plaintiff” should be used (unless, of course, it is the first word of a sentence). Professor Garner gives you the keys to making the most of your writing skills – in letters, memos, briefings, and more. The seminar covers five essential skills for persuasive writing: When should the word continuation and others be capitalized in the following examples? But to capitalize words when describing a particular document: Luckily for my students and for you as a practitioner, these capitalization rules are pretty intuitive, and once you start focusing on them in your draft, you can learn them quickly.
So it`s an easy way to improve the overall efficiency of your writing. However, the Blue Book also includes the examples of “the Court” and “the Agency”, which also replace proper nouns with common capitalized names. Section 8. In these examples, as well as in other examples in Rule 8, the specific article is always used. Are you sure? This goes against what the Bluebook examples would show, and it also contradicts anything I`ve ever seen submitted. The capitalized versions of the plaintiff and defendant are used instead of the name, so I see no reason why you should add “the” if you don`t specify the last name. Adding “the” only makes sense if you use the lowercase versions. The Just Writing rule that applies is Rule 3 of Chapter 10 on page 263: Use the definite article “the” with both counting and non-counting names if the specific identity of the name is clear to the reader.
I wouldn`t use reason 3 on superlatives and rank adjectives, because we often have neither plaintiff nor defendant with words. Reason 1 is rather the best explanation: readers know the specific identity of a name after it has already been used once in a certain context. In defense of my students, we hadn`t spent a lot of class time capitalizing, because in the grand scheme of things, it`s not as important to good legal writing as content, structure, and readability. And at the design stage, I didn`t expect perfection, and I didn`t “evaluate” their capitalization. I`m sure in the final pleadings, which are in a huge pile on my side table at home, most of the capitalization inconsistencies have been corrected. As a professor of legal writing, one of my goals is to inspire my students to strive for excellence in their work. But this month, when I was thinking about what to say in this column, it was my students who inspired me. At the end of February, they submitted their drafts to their final task, and as I read, I noticed that their capitalization of some words was very inconsistent, not only from draft to draft, but even from page to draft. Would you capitalize “answers to questions”? Thank you very much! All commentators agree that the words “plaintiff” and “defendant” should be capitalized when referring to specific parties in the case being written. Do we know why so many courts do not take this rule into account? When working for a judge (and without specific instruction in some way), should a person capitalize “court” in an objective note? It seems that the two document titles in your question are the actual titles, so if they are part of the pending action, you need to capitalize them.
In the song “Let`s call the whole thing off” by George and Ira Gershwin, the denigration of different approaches to pronunciation is immortalized; “You like potatoes and I like potahto, you love tomatoes and I love tomato, potato, potato, tomato!” According to Wikipedia, Gershwin`s song intentionally uses a non-standard pronunciation as an exaggeration of the differences between the two characters.
