Judge Labson Freeman just struck Ted Entertainment’s opposition to OpenAI’s motion to dismiss. The brief filed by Ted Entertainment used footnotes that violated the format and requirements of Judge Labson Freeman’s standing order.
The Standing Order states:
Ted Entertainment’s brief included (1) footnotes with single spacing (instead of double spacing) and (2) cited legal authorities (which is a no-no under the Standing Order). Plus, it has (3) 6 footnotes instead of the 5 footnotes maximum rule of thumb in the Standing Order. That’s 3 infractions!
A great lesson for my students
I’lll be using this example as a lesson for my students.
In teaching for more than 25 years, I have found that my students have had more problems than they should in submitting their papers and work product in the correct format — even though I stress the format throughout the semester.
This problem of non-conforming format has occurred over the years, despite my corrections of drafts of their papers into the correct format before the final paper is due, as well as posting a templated Word doc and offering to hop on a Zoom call to walk through various formatting issues in Word. Yet, I have found that formatting issues persist.
This example provides an important lesson: format matters. Incorrect format will be bounced.
Judge’s Order:
Ted Entertainment’s Opposition with single-spaced footnotes and substantive arguments:
