IT'S ALL IN THE DETAILS

Often in my DIC blog I talk about preparing court documents and how much time it takes me.  Sometimes I've mentioned how I really want to add to my blog, but can't because there is so much to do for court.  Well, here in this blog I am going to share with you exactly why it takes me so long to get the work done.  It's all in the details!

I recently had to hand in a brief to the Appellate court and I was getting close to the wire and didn't have much time within which to get it done.  What an adventure that turned out to be!


Unfortunately, briefs are written according to a strict format, so I had to make sure that I had everything in order, but I waited to do so at the last minute.  What a mistake!  


As my last action on behalf of the brief, I took a look at the requirements for a brief in the Practice Book 2010 and realized that there are very distinctive requirements for the margins of a reply brief.  One inch on top, one inch on bottom, one inch and 3/4 inch for the left margin and 3/4 inch for the right.  To make sure I had it right, I had to go and get a ruler and measure what I had.  After printing and reprinting and adjusting again and again, I finally had the margins approximately where they were supposed to me, though there was no way I could be exact.  


Unfortunately, I had a bit of a problem because I was on the verge of running out of paper and the finall sheaf of paper I found was overly thick and a little problematic for my printer to even use--every time a sheet came out the machine moaned and groaned and shrieked like I was killing it!  


After, I was done, I went to staples to make my twenty copies.  What the Court requires is an original and sixteen copies.  Then I also have to make additional copies for the parties involved and then I usually add an extra copy for me.  Unfortunately, when I was at Staples, I realized I had made the copies without signing my original meant that what I got was twenty unsigned copies.  So I had to rexerox the final three pages with my signature on it and then toss the unsigned copies and put the whole thing together. 


Depending on the brief you have, there are also requirements about the color of the cover sheet--blue, pink, or white.  Oh, and then on top of this you have to secure the brief with three staples at specific locations on the brief so I had to measure out where I put the staples on each of the twenty briefs I copied.  


Finally done after a few hours of this, I made a quick trip to Subway because I was starving, ate really quickly because I had to get everything to court as soon as possible, and drove into Hartford.  


When I got to Hartford I parked my car near the 2nd Church of Christ Scientist which is near by where the appellate court is.  Just getting a parking sticker for my car was a challenge in itself equal to writing the brief.  I have had to just take a fine several times when I've tried to get the sticker out of the parking kiosk because the darned machine is so complicated, complicated enough to make you want to kick the dang thing.  


On that day, I went and tried to submit my brief to the appellate clerk.  First off he asks me if my original is truly an original.  I'm like, "Weeelllll, it sort of isn't because the paper I used on my original was too thick and I didn't think you'd want paper that thick so I copied my original and have used that copy as the original."  The clerk didn't like that, but he took one of my twenty copies and stamped one with the word "original" in purple letters.  


Then the clerk looked at it again and said, "Well, you have too many pages in your brief and we can't accept it as it is."  Oh, dang, what happened was that when I adjusted the margins so they conformed to the requirements of the court, that ended up adding an extra page to the brief and I was so focused on the problem of getting the margins right I hadn't noticed.  Looking at the clerk as the realization slowly spread through me, I had this panicked clutchy feeling around my heart.  That day was the final deadline for getting the brief in, and I had to get the brief in that day or else.  So I was like, "Well, can't you accept it anyway?"  And the clerk looked at me deadpan and said, "No."  "I'm like, so what can I do."  "Well," he said, "You can take the brief home and cut parts out of it so it conforms to court requirements."  


Now, I knew there was no way I was going to drive one hour back home, spend an hour cutting the brief, and then spend another hour driving back to the courthouse. No way, I'd been up practically all night the night before, I was just too tired.  So I was like, "Well, what if I don't want to do that?"  I don't know, but maybe it's my teacher kid guilt, but I swear when I said that the clerk looked at me with disapproval for my unwillingness to go the extra mile and go home and back.  Even so, I wasn't going to budge.  "What are my other options?" I asked.  "You can write a letter to the judge and ask for permission to file the brief with extra pages." said the clerk.  I said, "OK, that's what I'll do.  Could you get me the name of the  judge I have to write this request to?"  


Needless to say, the clerk made it hard for me to get the exact name.  He walked several feet away from me, turned his back to me, and through the name over his shoulder.  I just about got the first name and a bit of the second name threw the glass partition, enough for me to keep on trying to figure it out at the judicial library next door.  


My next challenge was to find a computer where I could print out my request--the judicial library was just fine for that.  I asked the librarian there to find the name of the judge, but she couldn't figure it out after looking through several official looking legal books.  After watching her for a while, I finally googled the information.  


Just between you and me, watching her was like watching a movie scene--I swear I've seen it in some popular movie--where the villain makes all sorts of high powered karate moves and the hero just pulls out his gun and shoots him dead.  I think what I did rises to that level.  Google is just like the guy with the gun!  Pow!


Then I was typing up the letter when it struck me, how the heck do you address a letter to a judge--dear your honorable reverend judge sir?  And how do you address the envelope of the letter to the judge, versus how do you do the saluation to the judge in the letter--they are different, in fact.  So I went back into consultation with the librarian to get that information, which she provided to me.  


I printed the letter out and returned to the appellate court with my "original" brief and the copies and handed it in.  "So what now?" I asked.  "We will submit the request to the judge and see what he says." said the clerk.  Just to get clarity, because if you don't pursue these guys and ask for specific information, it is amazing how you can get screwed, so I asked him, "Is this brief now accepted by your office." "No," he answered, "unless the judge agrees to accept the brief despite the fact that it goes over the page limit, I have the brief, but it is not officially accepted by this office."  


I'm like, (to myself in my head) so what if the judge says no, then I have missed the deadline for handing in the brief, so where does that leave me?  I was going to articulate this thought to the clerk, but already having dealt with his lack of interest I just figured I'd let go, give the problem to the universe and check in with the clerk at a later date.  


In fact, I did call a few days later and the judge had accepted the brief, extra page and all.  Apparently, judges rarely deny a request of this kind, but still, he could have looked at me and decided to make an exception--there is always that time just in time for you when a judge will do something unexpected.  Never say never.  


Bottom line is, I spent hours on this stuff, margins, deadlines, signatures, page limitations, requests to the judge, driving in and out, worrying about forms of address, and I didn't even deal with anything significantly legal.  Amazing!  You've got to hand it to the legal system; it's a place where trivia rules and nitpickers finally have the opportunity to have their say, and God bless them!  If that's what it takes to get clarity, I guess it's worth it!  At least, I think it is...Hmmmm.