Bear You the Lantern
“….You are thought here to be the most senseless and fit man for the constable of the watch; therefore bear you the lantern.”
For Part Two of our Bard of the Bar Quality Control series, I would like to focus on the importance of teamwork and precision in the preparation of your briefs. You have a BPR number, so, to amend Dogberry’s words above, you are thought here to be the most sensible and fit person for an officer of the court. Put your team to work and file the most impeccable briefs you can.
Think of your brief as a car. Not the one-person hobbyist kit-car kind. The kind that is meant to sell in the marketplace. Different people labor to make different parts of this car. Somebody puts together the chassis. Someone else builds the engine. You get the idea. Everybody doesn’t do everything everywhere all at once. That’s for modern sci-fi movies.
I am lucky enough to have someone (besides me) check the accuracy of my legal citations. We used to call this “bluebooking” the citations, and I used to be that person when I was a young lawyer, and when I had a solo practice. If you can, train someone in your office to do this for you. It will make your life so much better, though maybe not for the person who must learn The Bluebook.
I am also fortunate to have someone else check all the record citations. I type the citations when I draft the brief, but in typing a 100+ citations, I will make typos and other mistakes. Train your paralegal or legal secretary to do this.
Finally, try to have an editor AND a proofreader. Editing and proofreading are two different functions. If you have to do all this quality control work yourself, then you have to get the brief done several days before it is due so you can get enough distance from the brief to edit and (especially) proofread your own work. It is very hard to proofread one of your own briefs.
Finally, your brief needs to be street-legal, so avoid the temptation to rush. Quality control means everybody doing their part.
Even the most diligent efforts can leave some missing parts. An attorney I shall not name (rhymes with “Ronald Dapperfella”) once meticulously checklisted (never forget the checklist. See BoB 15: Don’t Resist; Check the List) a brief after a truly team-effort, only to find that a single letter had been left off of a party’s name in the title of the document. It didn’t lead to a recall, but it still stung.
We all want to produce the best work we can for our clients. Put real effort into developing your brief-writing team. Bear you the lantern, most sensible and fit practitioner, so they can see the way.
