Suppress page numbering on the brief's cover. In fact, you may elect to set up your cover as a separate document from the rest of the brief, with no page numbering at all. If you have saved various parts of the brief as separate documents, you will have to adjust the page numbering on each so that it will be consecutive. For that reason, it's better to merge all sections of the brief into a single document.

Begin page numbering with the first white page of the brief itself. Use small roman numerals (i, ii, iii, iv) for all the preliminary sections of the brief that do not count against your page limit (e.g., Table of Contents, Table of Authorities).

For Arkansas briefs, Prof. Barger recommends that you separately number the Abstract with either a footer that identifies the pages as "Abstract 1" or with some sort of abbreviation used with the page number (e.g., "A-1" or "Ab-1"). Because the Abstract does not have a page limit, and because the clerk's office will need to count your Argument pages, this numbering technique will simplify that job for the clerk.

Begin regular page numbering of the substantive portions of the brief with page 1 (set page number "value" to 1).  Number pages at either the bottom center or bottom right. Just a simple number will do. There is no need to put hyphens around the number (-9-) or to insert the word "page" (Page 14).
 

In printing, the term "justification" refers to the way the words at the end of a line appear lined up straight on the margin or whether the margin looks "ragged" (uneven). Your word processor will probably have options for you to select left justification (lined up on left, ragged on right), right justification (lined up on right, ragged on left), or full justification (lined up both left and right). Use either left or full justification in your briefs. Many people like to fully justify the print because it looks very neat and precise. It's acceptable in Arkansas and in the federal courts; a few states' court rules forbid it, however.

A word of warning: WordPerfect versions 6.1 and above have a feature called "Make It Fit." Don't. The feature works by reducing margins, font size, line spacing -- all of which will likely violate your court rules on formatting.

"Indentation" refers to the practice of bringing a line in a certain space from the normal margins. Indent the first line of every paragraph by one-half inch; use the tab key to do this. Never never never hit the space bar 5 times; your indentations will be irregular from paragraph to paragraph.

If you need to bring text in an equal length from both margins (as when you are doing a block format quotation), use the double indent feature of your word processing program.

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The Table of Contents references the beginning page for every major section of the brief and every point heading and sub-heading. Any section the court rules call for is such a major section (e.g., Table of Authorities, Statement of the Case, Argument, Addendum). Be sure that your Table of Contents also includes the title and beginning page number for each item in the Abstract and/or Addendum. Every point heading and sub-heading is a sign-post for a major section of the Argument; include the page number where each such heading is found.

For ease of reading, consider typing headings in normal type in the Table of Contents, even though you have put them in caps, bold, italics, or underlining in the body of the Argument. Duplicate the outline numbering system you've used for these headings in the body of the Argument, and do indent the sub-headings.

Use dot leaders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . to connect the table entry and the page or pages where it is located. Avoid manually typing a period space period space etc. until you get to the right margin. You will end up with a wavy line at the right margin.

Do not crowd text into or over the space for page numbers. Use plenty of white space to make your tables attractive and easy to read. Remember that no court rule mandates a page limit for your tables. Either double indent the entry or hit the "enter" key to go to a new line.

Sample Point Heading

I. Cottontree's Chemical Screen Test Policy fails Vernonia's
efficacy requirement because the policy requires all
students to submit to drug testing but penalizes only
those students who drive to school. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12
 

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The Table of Authorities must reference the location of each full citation and short form used anywhere in the substantive portions of the brief. For Arkansas briefs, this means to reference citations not just in the body of the Argument, but also any citations used in support of the Points on Appeal. Do not, however, reference an authority mentioned only in a parenthetical to another citation. It is also unnecessary to reference authorities that appear only in the Abstract or Addendum.

Put the full citation (including subsequent history, if any) into the table. The table entry for a citation to an authority using page numbers should provide only the page on which the cited authority begins, not the authority's pinpoint page numbers.

If an authority is cited at so many pages in your brief that you'll have more than two-thirds of a line of page number references, use the abbreviation passim instead of giving the page numbers. (The term tells the reader that this authority is practically everywhere!) But don't get carried away: Use passim sparingly, if at all. The judges who read your brief want to be able to easily find the authorities you have cited. Italicize or underline passim, according to whether you are using italics or underlining in your citations.

Group your authorities by category (e.g., cases, constitutional provisions, statutes, rules, secondary authorities). Unless court rules require it, do not break cases down into sub-categories by jurisdiction (U.S. Supreme Court, Federal Circuits, State Courts). This practice unnecessarily complicates the table's usefulness and may irritate the judges reading your brief, as it forces them to try to remember which court decided a case or to look in several places for the citation they need.

Alphabetize the entries, or if they are numeric, put them in numerical order. If they are alpha-numeric, organize by whatever comes first, the letter or the number (e.g., put Ark. Code Ann. references before N.Y. Gen. Oblig. Law before Vt. Stat. Ann. Put 5 U.S.C. § 1440 before 23 U.S.C. § 205.)

For cases, alphabetize by the first party name. If more than one case begins with the same name (e.g., United States), then organize by the opponent's name (e.g., United States v. Leon before United States v. Lynch before United States v. Sakowskie).

For secondary authorities, alphabetize by the author's last name, even if you are following citation rules for writing the author's name in normal order, firstname lastname. Thus, the table will put Zachary Abramson ahead of Abigail Zimmerman.

Because citations are almost always long enough to take up most of a line, you can use a "hanging indent"-style format to attractively format them.  (In a hanging indent, the top line is at left margin; the succeeding lines of the citation are indented beneath.) If you find that the length of the citation is running into the area for the table's page numbers, hit "enter" and indent again. Your goal is to keep from crowding the area for page numbers.

Sample Entries for Table of Authorities

Chandler v. Miller,
    520 U.S. 305 (1997) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9, 10, 12

 Maitland v. University of Minnesota,
    155 F.3d 1013 (8th Cir. 1998). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

 Todd v. Rush County Sch.,
    133 F.3d 984 (7th Cir. 1998). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  . . . . . . . . . . . 13, 14, 18, 21

Use your word processing program to prevent "widows and orphans." This phrase refers to a single line of text from a paragraph that is standing alone at the bottom or top of a page. Set the word processing program to always keep at least two lines of text together.
 

Save your work in more than one place, and back up often. Computers been known to crash right before a brief's filing deadline. Disks become corrupted. E-mail a copy to yourself. Print out a hard copy from time to time; if all else fails, you can scan your printed draft.

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