Page 16 - Delaware Lawyer - Summer 2020

FEATURE
David Hricik and Karen J. Sneddon
Screen Time:
How to write motions and briefs competently for on-screen reading
In the 1984 movie Ghostbusters, Egon Spengler declared, “Print is dead.”1 Spengler’s declaration was premature, but perhaps now closer to true. Thirty-six years later and in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Federal Circuit, along with many other courts, generally banned submission of paper briefs and documents.2 Whether, as some say, these changes may be here to stay,3 clearly lawyers and judges are reading more legal documents on screens — and only on screens.
14 DELAWARE LAWYER SUMMER 2020
Lawyers have been creating docu- ments on screens for decades now, but typically that screen writing
process has had as its goal the filing of a printed brief or motion — something on paper. Paper copies were submitted, and in the process of writing on screen, hard copies were printed for review by hand. Even after e-filing became the norm, many readers printed the docu- ments to review and edit during the writing process.
More so now than ever, documents
are being read exclusively on a screen. Presumably, few judges have massive office copiers at their homes and so it is more likely than ever that court papers are being read exclusively on screens. That fact has profound implications for effective and persuasive communica- tion because screen readers receive in- formation differently, and typically less efficiently, than readers of text from a physical paper.4
This article summarizes the changes you should make to prepare more effec-
Legal Documents in the Digital Age