An unprofessional brief of 76,235 words violates the standards of ethical and proper appellate advocacy. In this juvenile dependency appeal, the court affirmed the judgment while noting that in the future the court will more closely review requests to file oversized briefs due to the brief filed in this case. California Rules of Court 14 and 33 require an appellants opening brief to summarize the significant facts from the record, but despite the length of the brief filed in this case, appellants counsel failed to adequately summarize the facts. The brief further contained unsupported arguments and unprofessional attacks on the parties involved in the proceedings. The court noted that the brief included exaggeration, redundancy, misstatements of the law, disparagements of the trial court, cruel descriptions of the mental state of appellants minor daughter, argument headings with no claim of error attached, and a repeated failure to demonstrate prejudice. The court referred the matter to the state bar for investigation.
Case Summaries