It’s quite easy to capitalise on court legal writing, especially when you know what to look for and where to look. Finding out exactly when and why to capitalize court legal writing can be a little trickier. After all, one of the main aims of any legal writer should be the ability to understand and implement court legal writing correctly, including all those capital letter dos and don’ts.
Fortunately, finding out how best to do this isn’t too difficult either, as this handy guide will show you step by step what you need to do in order to become an expert at it. Best of luck!
The judge (or jury)
The judge or jury is going to determine how your case goes. You need to use legal writing and word choice that speaks directly to them. This means using words like you and making sure you are speaking in a professional way, but one that will capture their attention. For example: If I was on trial, I would hire Best Legal Writing Companies. Or if it was a court document: A judge should ensure that he/she is consistently capitalizing on legal writing as they read through any court documents they are assigned.
Attorneys, paralegals, court officers, and clerks
no matter which one you are, there are ways to use capitalization in court cases. Here’s a quick look at when you should capitalize trial court terms in legal writing. District Courts: Federal and state courts are referred to as district courts or trial courts. If referring specifically to these types of courts, capitalize them (The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals).
Otherwise, do not capitalize district courts or trial courts (e.g., The attorney argued her case before a jury in district court). Trial Courts: It is correct to capitalize these types of words when referring to specific judges and proceedings. For example: U.S.
Parties and laypeople in litigation
Judges are often surprised by what they read in legal briefs and other court documents. For example, a party might refer to its adversary as Mr. (lowercase), while lower courts would have capitalized that term of address.
Because parties generally have broad discretion over how they write their filings, laypeople could experience some trouble distinguishing between proper and improper capitalization of legal terms. If you’re planning on writing a brief or any other kind of document for court that needs editing, it’s best to ask someone at Best Legal Writing Companies first!
Documents
The first thing a reader notices when looking at legal writing is whether or not they are capitalized. There are two common capitalization situations: court and document titles. As a general rule, we capitalize these items if they are in title case or all caps, but don’t capitalize them if they appear in sentence case (what you would type out as normal).
Websites
One of your legal drafting assignments is bound to include a court reference. When in doubt, err on capitalizing it, especially if you want it to be treated as case law and/or precedential. District Courts are proper nouns and should be capitalized: We appealed Brinkley v. Sisney (the District Court for Polk County) to Nebraska’s Supreme Court.
Lower trial courts those with judicial officers but no jury are also proper nouns and should be capitalized: Our strategy was risky because we were pushing for remand from Grinnell v.
