Appellate Brief Forum

[mikeytwoshoes]

I fucking hate this brief.

[A'nold]

LOL, guess what I've been doing all day and right now?

[AlasLavinia]

I fucking hate this brief.

Agreed.

I just spent the past two hours reading Senate findings from effing 1968.

[macattaq]

For something that seems to stand out like that, probably.

[A'nold]

For something that seems to stand out like that, probably.

But I need that $100 for transferring. Such a dilemma.

[mac.empress]

The two I had to do were due on Friday.

I didn't sleep for 24 hours before that.

I'm therefore taking the whole weekend to recover.

[TTT-LS]

.

[A'nold]

Though I have a lot to do, I really, REALLY do not miss this part of 1L year. It gets better from here. Except 2L fall. I promise.

Well, what's LR like in comparison to Legal Writing?

[A'nold]

Bump for those of us that stayed up till 4:00 a.m. last night working on this monstrosity and are starting again.

[A'nold]

FUCK YOU, YOU MOTHERFUCKING BRIEF

Lol, still plugging away right now......and probably will be for the next two weeks straight.

[OperaSoprano]

Mine was due on the 1st. Oral arguments were this morning. I'm just now starting to feel calm enough that my friends can trust me around sharp implements. I know my brief was full of fail; I really feel like falling on a sword just now.

[mikeytwoshoes]

FUCK YOU, YOU MOTHERFUCKING BRIEF

Lol, still plugging away right now......and probably will be for the next two weeks straight.

FUCK YOU, YOU MOTHERFUCKING 1L WITH TWO WEEKS TO WORK ON A MOTHERFUCKING BRIEF!

[mikeytwoshoes]

FUCK YOU, YOU MOTHERFUCKING BRIEF

Lol, still plugging away right now......and probably will be for the next two weeks straight.

FUCK YOU, YOU MOTHERFUCKING 1L WITH TWO WEEKS TO WORK ON A MOTHERFUCKING BRIEF!

Mine was assigned 2 weeks ago, due in about 2.5 weeks from now. However, it is exceedingly complicated.

We have a semester writing assignment with two separate briefs, the second of which is due on Tuesday. We then combine the two and do the oral arguments. The combined brief is due at the end of March or maybe the ides thereof.

[patrickd139]

I fucking hate this brief.

Just checking in to let beta know he's not missing anything at OU.

[pandacot]

Had a major freak out with my brief.

Downloaded the westlaw software that automatically creates a TOA. Checked software on Thursday. Worked perfectly. Brief was due at 1 on Friday. Boot up software at noon on Friday to create the TOA, and error code pops up. Try opening software a gillion more times and error code every time. 12:45 and I still don't have half of the TOA done. While making TOA, my TOC and formatting for everything goes awry. Go to print thinking my grade is fucked. At print station, student from my class tells me that the brief has been pushed back to being due at 4 p.m. Go to bathroom and clean the shit out of my pants. Hand in brief at 4 with everything complete.

2 Lessons learned. (fixed to account for post below)

[mikeytwoshoes]

Had a major freak out with my brief.

Downloaded the westlaw software that automatically creates a TOA. Checked software on Thursday. Worked perfectly. Brief was due at 1 on Friday. Boot up software at noon on Friday to create the TOA, and error code pops up. Try opening software a gillion more times and error code every time. 12:45 and I still don't have half of the TOA done. While making TOA, my TOC and formatting for everything goes awry. Go to print thinking my grade is fucked. At print station, student from my class tells me that the brief has been pushed back to being due at 4 p.m. Go to bathroom and clean the shit out of my pants. Hand in brief at 4 with everything complete.

Lesson learned.

Brown underwear?

[wannabealonghorn]

Brief sucks and I am getting nervous as deadline approaches.

[Danteshek]

I'm very pleased with my brief. I'm pretty sure I'll get an A like last semester. First round of arguments was this morning.

[A'nold]

FUCK YOU, YOU MOTHERFUCKING BRIEF

FUCK YOU, YOU MOTHERFUCKING 1L WITH TWO WEEKS TO WORK ON A MOTHERFUCKING BRIEF![/b]

Mine was assigned 2 weeks ago, due in about 2.5 weeks from now. However, it is exceedingly complicated.

We have a semester writing assignment with two separate briefs, the second of which is due on Tuesday. We then combine the two and do the oral arguments. The combined brief is due at the end of March or maybe the ides thereof.

Wait, this is what I have to do as well.

[engineer]

I don't know what's wrong with all of you, but I think brief writing is a lot of fun. Let's think about this for a minute.. you get to show off your legal writing skills, read extremely relevant case law from the 70s, spend hours upon hours agonizing over minutiae that really don't even matter, and get to compete with 30 other classmates for a limited pool of As. Fuck my life.

[A'nold]

I don't know what's wrong with all of you, but I think brief writing is a lot of fun. Let's think about this for a minute.. you get to show off your legal writing skills, read extremely relevant case law from the 70s, spend hours upon hours agonizing over minutiae that really don't even matter, and get to compete with 30 other classmates for a limited pool of As. Fuck my life.

Yeah, not to mention you are competing with those same 30 classmates using the exact same topic, format, and organization and get the same advice about which cases to use and what rules and facts to pull out......

[A'nold]

All break, and the only thing I've finished is a decent outline for the first of two issues. I scrapped the fucking brief once already because I didn't like it. Fucking A. I hate this thing.

Yeah, I'm basically starting from scratch as well. I need this grade yet here I am not doing it.

[BobSacamano]

My brief is half of my 4 credit writing credit, and I have ABSOLUTELY NO MOTIVATION to do it. The topic is fairly interesting and I've already written a bunch of crap, I just can't be bothered to fix it so it's somewhat suitable to be turned in.

It's due Friday. HOORAY!

[chadwick218]

Appellate Brief Done! Only one oral argument worth 5% separates me from never setting foot in a legal writing classroom again!

[Danteshek]

--LinkRemoved--

This is the email I sent to about 80 friends and family

Attached is my appellate brief for this semester. The topic is very interesting - the outrageous government conduct defense (technically it's not a defense, rather it's a claim to dismiss an indictment). This doctrine, unlike entrapment, is available to defendants who are predisposed to commit the crime. Unfortunately, the doctrine is basically dead - it hasn't been successfully invoked in the 9th Circuit since United States v. Green in 1971. However, it remains available to the federal courts just in case the government behaves especially badly. I argue that in this case, the government indeed has crossed the threshold into truly outrageous conduct.

My first round of oral argument was this Saturday. If I successfully navigate the next few rounds, I may have the chance to argue at the 9th Circuit, in front of the same judges who decided the cases I refer to in my brief.