Avoid excessive detail as to dates, facts, and figures.

• Jurisdiction: United States

Section 117. Avoid excessive detail as to dates, facts, and figures.—Never be more detailed on facts, dates, or figures in oral argument than your case requires you to be. Normally, counsel should eliminate months and days in stating dates, and should use good round figures—except only when the more detailed presentation is an essential part of the case.

For instance:

Petitioner was convicted by a jury in Nineteen Hundred and Thirty-Eight. He did not appeal. Thereafter he brought four successive petitions for habeas corpus, in Nineteen Hundred and Forty, Nineteen Hundred and Forty-Two, Nineteen Hundred and Forty-Five, and Nineteen Hundred and Forty-Six. The last petition is the one now before the Court.⁹

Compare the foregoing with the more detailed statement that follows:

Petitioner...