Recently, I was brought in by an appellant’s attorney to review his draft opening brief. I noticed that the precise language of a settlement agreement would play a very important role in how the appellate court decided the case.

The draft brief discussed the settlement agreement and quoted a key sentence, but did not include the entire two operative paragraphs of the agreement. I told the attorney: “If I were the judge, I’d want to see the context of the sentence you quoted. I’d want to see the two operative paragraphs of the settlement agreement. His reply: “Why use some of my 14,000-word limit on that? They can go look up the settlement agreement in the record.”