A Point About Bullet Points
(Because this is an excerpt from a larger article,
“Future Predictions About Legal Writing: Redundancies and Musings,”
the footnote is 71)
by Kenneth Bresler
Scribes Journal of Legal Writing 2014–2015
Let’s go back to Abramski [v. United States] and innovations in Supreme Court opinions, such as photographs, charts, and maps. Justice Scalia’s dissent in Abramski might be the first use of bullet points in a Supreme Court decision.71 If any lawyer thinks that bullet points don’t belong in briefs – use an outline format, yes; but bullet points, no, because they’re not numbers or letters – it will be harder to sustain that position when a Supreme Court Justice is bulleting points.
71 Id. [134 S. Ct. 2259 (2014)] at 2278–79.