Summary Judgments: Make it easy for the courts

Whether you are the moving or opposing party, you want to make the trial court's task in reviewing the motion for summary judgment as easy as possible.  That means having a clear and concise Introduction, topic headings that are fairly descriptive of the argument, and a presentation that is easy on the eyes.  To me, that includes shorter sentences with active verbs, and shorter paragraphs.  Variety is the spice of life, and I think this rule applies to sentence structure.  I also make sure that I throw in a few indented quotes to mix up the structure so the judge isn't facing the monotony of page after page with no change in format.

I try to make it easy for the trial court, and the court of appeal, to give me what I want.   Judges are often overworked and saddled with large caseloads. Your case is not the only case on the calendar.  Don’t expect them to remember your case as you do or recall your last hearing.  You are lucky if they do, and if they don’t, they may not want to admit it.  That means making your motion or opposition as comprehensive as possible.  That also means presenting it in a way that doesn’t require the court to hunt for documents or evidence.  This suggestion could apply to something as simple as tabbing and indexing your evidence.  Tabs make everyone’s life easy.  It also means not referring to evidence in your memorandum of points and authorities, and then avoiding it when preparing the Separate Statement.

And finally, keep your page count to a respectable level.  You can do that by trying to stay focused and not bring up matters that will only complicate the motion.  Complications work against a moving party as the trial court may suspect there is a triable issue lurking somewhere; it just hasn’t found out where it is.