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Is there any way to find briefs that have been submitted to a federal court, without using the PACER system? If one was looking for an example of a trial brief, where would you suggest one look?

kidfromny wrote:Is there any way to find briefs that have been submitted to a federal court, without using the PACER system? If one was looking for an example of a trial brief, where would you suggest one look?

westlaw? lol

How in westlaw? I'm talking an actual brief, like a sample of a brief

In Westlaw Next, you can sometimes find the briefs filed in a case. When you pull up a case, in the upper right hand corner of the screen, there is a tab that says "document" and another that says "filings." There may be others. Select the "filings" tab. On this tab, you will see a list of documents filed for the case. The briefs are often there. Sometimes they are also available in PDF format as well as the typical Westlaw Next screen format. Hope this helps.

kidfromny wrote:How in westlaw? I'm talking an actual brief, like a sample of a brief

It usually omits some briefs. I've experienced this. Thank god I have a PACER account.

3|ink wrote:It usually omits some briefs. I've experienced this. Thank god I have a PACER account.

We've been left completely out to dry by the prof. It's my understanding that most school's 1L second semester Writing class consists of only an Appellate Brief due later on in the semester? We have that as well as a trial brief due after just 2 classes.

Westlaw has a large database of filed court documents.

Go to the start page of WestlawNext. Look underneath the "All Content" tab of the Browse section. There should be a section called "trial court documents." Click on it, then select your state or district. It should take you to a page with the most recently filed documents for that district. At the top of the page just search for "trial brief." You should get a few examples, but you'll have to weed through the results because it's going to show anything that has the words "trial brief" in the title, including a lot of oppositions to trial briefs. After you select one, you can click on the PDF file at the top of the page to see a scan of the original document.

Trial briefs are usually fairly simple in form, so it shouldn't be that difficult to write one. They don't have most of the formatting requirements of an appellate brief.

--LinkRemoved--

Modify as necessary to change venue or focus on a particular type of motion.

"Brief in Support" is also used, but not as often.

kidfromny wrote:

3|ink wrote:It usually omits some briefs. I've experienced this. Thank god I have a PACER account.

We've been left completely out to dry by the prof. It's my understanding that most school's 1L second semester Writing class consists of only an Appellate Brief due later on in the semester? We have that as well as a trial brief due after just 2 classes.

u'll be glad later that he made u do this now.