Detailed information on the substance of a Petition for Writ of Certiorari, including the order in which required items are to appear, can be found in Supreme Court Rule 14.1. Per Rule 14.1, “A petition for writ of certiorari shall contain, in the order indicated:” Questions Presented “The questions presented for review, expressed concisely in [...]
APPELLATE BRIEF PROCESS - LEGAL PROOFREADING After we do an initial review of your document as described in my earlier post, The Cockle Appellate Brief Process Part 1, we will typeset and proofread the document, then email a proof to you with our readers’ notes. After you review the proof, you can scan it back to [...]
One of the services most valued by attorneys is proofreading. Because our goal is for all briefs to be as clean as possible when finished, at Cockle Legal Briefs, your documents are proofread, word-for-word, by two professionally-trained legal proofreaders. Our legal proofreaders are trained to read documents for misspellings, grammatical errors, improper sentence structure, and [...]
APPELLATE BRIEF PROCESS - LEGAL BRIEF PRINTING At Cockle Legal Briefs we believe that Better Briefs Win. We strive to craft the highest quality briefs. We succeed because we are the only Supreme Court brief printer to proofread everything with teams of two professional readers. Our staff actively pursues an intimate knowledge of Court practices [...]
When confronted with a Petition for Writ of Certiorari filed in the United States Supreme Court, some attorneys will play the odds and let the Court deal with a Petition without even filing a Brief in Opposition. A Respondent may choose to waive the right to oppose a Petition that seems clearly without merit. This [...]
How Is Cockle Legal Briefs Different? We strive to craft the highest quality briefs. We succeed because we are the only Supreme Court brief printer to proofread everything—with teams of two professional readers—and our staff actively pursues an intimate knowledge of Court practices and conventions. Located in the heart of the nation, we are able [...]
The U.S. Supreme Court was “born” 225 years ago today, September 24, 1789. This is the date that the Judiciary Act of 1789 (which established the form of the Supreme Court) was signed into law by President George Washington. The first six Justices were also nominated: John Jay (Chief Justice), John Blair, William Cushing, [...]
Original Actions may proceed through three distinct stages before final resolution. The first is similar to the “petition stage” of a cert petition and the last is similar to the “merits stage.” The second, “interim” stage, is unique. Stage 1 is commenced by filing the Complaint. The Complaint must be preceded by a Motion For [...]
Today, August 8th, 2014, Cockle Legal Briefs printed and filed Virginia's petition in the same-sex marriage case Rainey v. Bostic, et al. in the United States Supreme Court. The question presented is: Whether Virginia violates the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses by denying the right of marriage to same-sex couples and by refusing to recognize same-sex marriages [...]
Litigation at the Supreme Court is called an Original Action. The parties are bringing their dispute directly to the Supreme Court, bypassing all lower courts. Most Original Actions are civil disputes between two or more States and the Court always has original and exclusive jurisdiction over these cases. See 28 U.S.C. § 1251(a). Recent cases [...]