Attorneys, you might have heard about "cleaning up" case quotations in your briefs. When you have a quote with a lot of internal quotations marks and ellipses and unsightly square brackets, several appellate courts — including the US Supreme Court — have used the parenthetical ("cleaned up") following a citation to signal the removal of these unnecessary symbols. But, is it licit for us attorneys to use ("cleaned up") for ourselves?
Absolutely not, says Jeff Calkins, recently-retired senior research attorney with the Fourth District Court of Appeal (Santa Ana). Jeff tells Jeff Lewis and me on the California Appellate Law Podcast that if the court sees attorney turning in any quotations with any material removed from them, the court is going to check it out. So using ("cleaned up") is only going to arouse suspicion, and is not doing the court any favors.
Watch the clip here.
This clip is from the California Appellate Law Podcast episode 15, available here.
Tim Kowal helps trial attorneys and clients win their cases and avoid error on appeal. He co-hosts the Cal. Appellate Law Podcast at www.CALPodcast.com, and publishes a newsletter of appellate tips for trial attorneys at www.tvalaw.com/articles. His appellate practice covers all of California's appellate districts and throughout the Ninth Circuit, with appellate attorneys in offices in Orange County and Monterey County. Contact Tim at tkowal@tvalaw.com or (714) 641-1232.