keePingBriefSClean : CuTTingunneCeSSaryBlueBooking appellate practice Section Chairs : BrandonK . Breslow — Kynes , Markman & Felman , P . A . & DavidM . Costello — FloridaSolicitorGeneral ’ sOffice
expertsadviselawyerstokeep briefscleanbycutting “ unnecessary ” language .
Experts advise lawyers to keep briefs clean by cutting “ unnecessary ” language . 1 Another tip is to cut unnecessary Bluebooking . Consider this example : “[ A ] trial court ’ s grant of summary judgment is reviewed de novo .” Panettieri v . People ’ s Tr . Ins ., 344 So . 3d 35 , 37 ( Fla . 4th DCA 2022 ) ( quoting Sunshine State Ins . v . Jones , 77 So . 3d 254 , 257 ( Fla . 4th DCA 2012 )).
The “ quoting ” parenthetical is unnecessary . There ’ s no need to note that the court said in Sunshine what it again said in Panettieri — especially regarding such a mundane point . Instead , the cleaner choice is to use a “ citation omitted ” parenthetical , like this : “[ A ] trial court ’ s grant of summary judgment is reviewed de novo .” Panettieri v . People ’ s Tr . Ins ., 344 So . 3d 35 , 37 ( Fla . 4th DCA 2022 ) ( citation omitted ). The Bluebook expressly permits this practice . 2
Daring lawyers who want to keep their briefs even cleaner might venture outside The Bluebook . Granted , Florida Rule of Appellate Procedure 9.800 ( p ) says that citations “ shall be in the form prescribed ” by The Bluebook . But , that rule
can hardly be understood to require strict compliance with all of The Bluebook ’ s minutiae . 3
One tool you won ’ t find in The Bluebook is the “ cleaned up ” parenthetical . Invented in 2017 by an appellate lawyer , 4 this parenthetical has made its way to Florida courts , 5 and it serves as a tool to avoid using notations otherwise required by The Bluebook . Again , an example is in order .
Suppose there ’ s a case called Peteves v . Costello and the court quotes from the prior paragraph as follows : “[ T ] he ‘ cleaned up ’ parenthetical . . . [ was ] [ i ] nvented in 2017 by an appellate lawyer . . . [ and ] has made its way to Florida courts . . . .” This looks ugly , but you wouldn ’ t have to carry forward that ugliness if you were to quote from the court ’ s opinion . Instead , you could simply clean up the quote — that is , omit the ellipses , brackets , and parentheticals that The Bluebook would require — and add a “ cleaned up ” parenthetical at the end of the citation . The resulting citation would look like this : “ The ‘ cleaned up ’ parenthetical was invented in 2017 by an appellate lawyer and has made its way to
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Florida courts .” Peteves v . Costello , 123 So . 4th 567 , 568 ( Fla . 2022 ) ( cleaned up ). Isn ’ t this much easier to read ?
A parting word : be careful what you clean . Courts are wary of lawyers who obscure the truth under the guise of cleaning up a citation . 6 If your citation concerns a controversial point , it might be best not to clean it up .
1
E . g ., Bryan A . Garner , Garner on Language and Writing 407 ( 2009 ).
2
The Bluebook : A Uniform System of Citation B5.1 ( 21st ed . 2020 ) (“ A quotation appearing within another quotation can either be parenthetically attributed to its original source or otherwise acknowledged by indicating that a citation has been omitted .”).
3
Cf . Fla . R . App . P . 9.800 , committee notes to 1977 adoption (“ Use of these citation forms . . . has not been made mandatory .”).
4
See Jack Metzler , Cleaning Up Quotations , 18 J . App . Prac . & Process 143 , 143 n . a1 ( 2017 ).
5
E . g ., Gary v . State , 330 So . 3d 118 , 121 – 22 ( Fla . 2d DCA 2021 ).
6
See , e . g ., Callahan v . United Network for Organ Sharing , 17 F . 4th 1356 , 1362 n . 1 ( 11th Cir . 2021 ).
Author : Dimitri Peteves – Creed & Gowdy , P . A .
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