A single post on Twitter is limited to 140 characters. My column today consists of approximately 1,400 words. And, if you are preparing a brief to be filed in a federal appellate court, you also may need to be concerned with word counts, because the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure use a word count limit, rather than a page limit, to determine whether an appellate brief is within the applicable size limit.
On Jan. 9, the entire membership of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, consisting of all active and senior judges, issued a “Standing Order Regarding Motions to Exceed the Page Limitations of the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure.” That standing order contained the remarkable news that in about 25 percent of the cases on appeal, the 3rd Circuit receives motions to exceed the word limits applicable to appellate briefs. The standing order further reports that 71 percent of those motions seek to exceed the word limits by more than 20 percent.
