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Merits Briefs
MERITS BRIEFS AND JOINT APPENDICES
The merits stage of a Supreme Court case comes with its own set of detailed rules. Merit briefs, which have a 15,000 word limit, require the normal section headings associated with a petition for writ of certiorari. However, merits briefs also require a “Summary of Argument” that “should be a clear and concise condensation of the argument.” Rule 24.1(h). When brief printing is completed, counsel must send a copy of their brief to the Court and opposing counsel in a “text searchable portable document format (PDF) compatible with the latest version of Adobe Acrobat with all fonts embedded,” to the Court. See Guidelines for Electronic Submission of Brief on the Merits.
On the merits stage, a joint appendix must be prepared in compliance with Supreme Court Rule 26. The Court requires that all joint appendices contain a table of contents “showing the parts of the record that it contains, in the order in which the parts are set out, with references to the pages of the joint appendix at which each part begins.” Rule 26.5. Furthermore, all relevant lower court docket entries “shall” be placed after the table of contents. Id.
Cockle Law Brief Printing Company can assist you every step of the way in preparing a merits brief and joint appendix. The Cockle staff is intimately familiar with the rules governing joint appendices. Just this term, Cockle helped prepare several joint appendices, including the appendices in Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association, No. 08-1448, and Stern v. Marshall, No. 10-179. Additionally, Cockle printed merits briefs Camreta v. Greene; Fowler v. United States; McComish v. Bennett; Arizona Free Enterprise v. Bennett; Wal-Mart v. Dukes; Snyder v. Phelps; Reynolds v. United States; Connick v. Thompson to name a few.
Once your merits brief is completed, we prepare the PDF version of your brief required by Rule 25.8. We also post your merits brief to our website and to our blog–The CockleBur. With Cockle Law Brief Printing Company, you can be assured that your merits brief and joint appendix are rule compliant and timely filed.