Effective statement of the facts; how to formulate and write it.

• Jurisdiction: United States

Section 24. Effective statement of the facts; how to formulate and write it.—First of all, when you write a Statement of Facts, you must remember that you are endeavoring to reach another person's mind. You must also remember that any person's acquisition of knowledge is a cumulative process. Therefore, you must state the facts of the case in your brief as you yourself would wish to read them—the introductory summary first, the details later—in order to get a clear, consecutive, understandable picture of what the case is really about.

A lawyer stating the facts of his case is telling a story, a story the court should be able to accept and understand as it reads along, without having to supplement your narrative by its own independent efforts. Or, to use a different metaphor, the lawyer stating the facts is painting a picture—and those who look at that picture should not be troubled by the details of how the artist mixed his colors. To the extent that the judicial reader may want to check the facts of your story, or the art-lover those of the picture, the record references will supply the necessary assurance that what has been depicted is real and not imaginary. (See Sections 44 and 80, below.)

Therefore, always avoid the lazy kind of summary that says, "The witness Quackenbush testified that ——; that ——; that ——; that ——," and so on ad infinitum and ad nauseam. Any literate stenographer can do that; most lazy lawyers do it; but, as it isn't very helpful to the court and it doesn't forward the case, the good lawyer will not do it.

Similarly, it is a mistake to assume, as many lawyers apparently do, that it is necessary to set out the testimony in the same order in which it was presented at the trial. The trial lawyer must take one witness...