As a profession, judges really aren’t known for letting the little things slide. Sure, every judge is different, blah, blah, blah, but they’re given wide latitude to make and enforce their own rules, and you’d best believe they’re going to take that seriously. Yes, even over something as seemingly minor as a footnote — if it’s important enough to have a local rule over, it’s surely important enough to enforce the rule.
That lesson is one the Department of Justice is learning the hard way. As reported by Law.com, Judge James E. Boasberg of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia has sent the DOJ back to the drawing board “for violating the court’s local rule on excessive footnotes, particularly given the length of the footnotes here.” The case was brought against the DOJ by the Citizens for Responsible Ethics in Washington, the National Security Archives, and the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations over allegations the State Department failed to properly document policies in violation of the Federal Records Act.
The local rule isn’t specific on the exact number of footnotes or lines of text, saying, “All pleadings shall appear in 12-pt font and shall be double-spaced. Footnotes, which shall not be excessive, shall also appear in 12-pt font.” But after rejecting the DOJ’s initial filing over the amount of footnotes, they were given very specific instructions. They had to cut down the footnotes to “no more than five footnotes with no more than 25 aggregate lines of text.” Compare that with the original brief, which had 12 footnotes with 80 lines of text.
This isn’t the first (or even second) time Judge Boasberg has made a big deal over the length of footnotes. So, if you have a case in front of him, consider this your notice and footnote accordingly.
Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, and host of The Jabot podcast. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).