Citations; number of citations.

• Jurisdiction: United States

Section 68. Citations; number of citations.—One of the best, if not the best, single article on appellate arguments is still the late John W. Davis's The Argument of an Appeal.¹ In one of the introductory paragraphs of that paper, there appears the following:

I assume also that the briefs are not overlarded with long quotations from the reported opinions, no matter how pat they seem; nor over-crowded with citations designed it would seem to certify to the industry of the brief-maker rather than to fortify the argument. A horrible example of this latter fault crossed my desk within the month in a brief which, in addition to many statutes and text-writers, cited by volume and page no less than 304 decided cases, a number calculated to discourage if not to disgust the most industrious judge.

I chanced to be in the audience when the foregoing was first delivered, at the Association of the Bar of the City of New York in 1940—and, as it happened, the "horrible example" referred to was the Government's brief in the Northern Pacific reargument,² a case I had argued against Mr. Davis just a week or so previously. Together with the late Judge E. E. Danly and some others, I had sweated over that brief all summer long. At any rate, when I saw the speaker immediately after his lecture, he seemed nonplussed, and the following conversation took place:

W: I'm sorry you didn't like our brief.

D: Well, I did think you cited too many cases.

W: If I were inclined to be critical of your production, I should say that you cited too few cases.

D: Had it occurred to you that we had too few cases which we could cite?

All of which passed off very pleasantly and amiably. I was...