Are you sure? This contradicts what the blue book examples would indicate, and it also contradicts everything I have ever seen. The uppercase versions of the plaintiff and defendant are used instead of the name, so I see no reason why you should add “the” if you don`t provide the last name. Adding “the” only really makes sense if you use the lowercase versions. Similarly, in the case of terms such as “plaintiff”, “defendant”, “plaintiff”, “respondent”, “appellant”, it could be argued that this basic idea of capitalization requires that words be capitalized when they refer to the particular plaintiff or defendant, and that lowercase letters be used when the words are used generically to describe the group of people. It is true that it is common for these terms to be capitalized in many examples of legal writing and used without articles, and the example of the Bluebook seems to support this approach. My co-author Laurel Oates and I saw that the article was included in the writings of many lawyers and judges and deleted. Nevertheless, the general rules for English articles are clear as to when they should be used in such situations with names, and we think this is why so many readers find it distressing to see plaintiffs or defendants being used without an article. However, the Blue Book also provides the examples of “the Court” and “the Agency”, which similarly replace proper nouns with capitalized common nouns. Article 8[edit] In these examples, as well as in other cases of Article 8, the article in question will continue to be used.

•Note that if you refer to a party without providing their last name, the word “the” will be added. See Anne Enquist & Laurel Oates, Just Writing 265 (3rd ed. 2009). •Example: “Plaintiff Ludke alleges that the defendant committed theft by a contractor.” (2) If you provide the full name of a court, that is, if you indicate the title of the court, I agree. I may have seen, “In the trustee`s application for dismissal, she argued that the time limit had expired.” But I`m sure I`ve never seen before, “The plaintiff is applying for a protection order because of the incriminating nature of the discovery being requested.” I think the order is always capitalized, and if it`s a protection order, then Protective is also capitalized. And in my first example, there would certainly be nothing wrong with capitalizing on a motion to dismiss. With respect to the word “court,” the convention in the United States again states that capital letters must be used when it comes to the Supreme Court and the highest court in a particular jurisdiction, as well as the court you are addressing. In other cases, lowercase letters should be used.

The position in Australian literature still differs; According to the Australian Legal Guide to Citation (AGLC), “`court` should be capitalized when used to refer to a particular court, but `a court` and `the court` (without reference to a particular court) should not be capitalized.” Aglc also confirms that words should generally only be capitalized if they appear at the beginning of a sentence, title or title of proper nouns. This remark reminds me to point out that the above rules also apply when a pleading is filed before a court of appeal. Review California`s rules on when and when to capitalize in court or tribunal by reviewing the lists of correct examples in the California Style Manual, sections 4:1 and 4:2. I agree – the hearing does not need to be capitalized in the main part of the statement, as in your example: “At the hearing, the tenant testified.” but to capitalize the words when describing a particular document: Fortunately for my students and for you as a practitioner, these capitalization rules are quite intuitive, and once you get started, by focusing on them in your design, you can learn them quickly. So it`s an easy way to improve the overall efficiency of your writing. I was wondering if the name of the action should be capitalized in a count. Would I write, “The court should dismiss the plaintiff`s claim for breach of contract in Head I” or should it be called “Claim for Breach of Contract in Head I”? At least in the early years, you should also capitalize on everything the boss wants to do big. It seems that both document titles are the actual titles of your question, so if they are part of the pending action, you need to capitalize on them.

My preference for using the particular article is more based on the grammar rule that you should use a particular article when using a particular name. owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/540/01/. The defendant in that action brought an application for dismissal. Confused? Me too, and it seems that this feeling is shared more widely, with two lawyers (or consultants?)!! I recently inquired, everyone having a different vision of the subject. However, the modern trend is towards a cleaner, simpler and less uppercase font, so in case of uncertainty, perhaps the safest bet is to get it wrong on the side of the tiny alternative. Could you capitalize on a reference to “responses to interrogations”? Thank you very much! At the moment, our first-year students are finalizing their trial-level briefings in the LAWR 2 course. We discussed when certain words should be capitalized in a letter. Here are the general rules according to the 18th edition of the Bluebook. (Rule 8 and B10.6): During a judicial internship or internship for a judge (and without specific instruction in one way or another), should a person capitalize on “court” in an objective note? The convention is to put these words in lowercase when used generically to describe a class of stocks or articles: Laura Graham, assistant director of legal analysis, writing and research, is an associate professor of legal writing at Wake Forest University School of Law, where she has taught for 15 years. It welcomes emails from readers at [email protected].

I have to write reports that contain arrests and convictions. There is a lot of debate about whether crimes should be capitalized. For example, with regard to the use of the definitive article “the”: In many briefs, as in many contracts, it is common, but perhaps erroneous, to define different entities that can be referred to repeatedly in the briefing. Example: “This motion is filed against the motion to dismiss defendant John Brown (“Brown” or “Respondent”). In the present case, the defendant was defined as the defendant, and the author would use only the descriptive name throughout the pleadings: “The plaintiff objects to the defendant`s description of the […].