Lisa Bivens
2600 N Central Ave., Suite 1000
Phx, Az 85004
FAX Number: 602-358-0291
[email protected]
SBA No 034075

I strongly support this petition to do away with the Table of Authorities requirement, as do others at my firm. As a practitioner, this is one of the most time consuming and thankless tasks associated with creating an appellate brief, which results in greater cost to the client, which further limits accessibility of the appellate process. Considering the advances in modern technology and the ease of access to case law, this requirement does not appear to be as helpful and/or necessary to the court as it once was. Please do away with this outdated, burdensome, and fruitless requirement. Thank you.

I support the proposed rule change and can provide anecdotal support for the proposition that Tables of Authority are rarely used as a navigational tool.

James Morse Jr.
Court of Appeals, Division one
602.452.6700

I support the proposed rule change. After reading petitioners' well-written article in the Arizona Attorney magazine I became more mindful of the table of authorities and can report that in the last year (during which I worked full time in appeals as either a judicial clerk or appellate attorney) I had exactly one occasion to find any value in the table. Specifically to quickly ascertain whether the brief cited any cases that post-dated a relevant supreme court case. This could have been easily accomplished through a scroll of the brief and, while anecdotal, the time saved there did not justify the billable time to create that and every other table of authorities in the briefs I have read and filed.

Kevin Morrow (034697)
2005 N. Central Ave.
Phoenix, AZ 85004
[email protected]
805-410-2933

I support this rule petition. As a clerk at the Arizona Supreme Court, I did not use the table of citations when reviewing briefing. When I needed to find a citation, I used the CTRL+F feature on the digital version to quickly locate it.

Thank you,
Julie Pack
Assistant Attorney General
Alaska Department of Law
1031 West 4th Avenue, Suite 200
Anchorage, AK 99501-199
[email protected]
(907) 269-5266

Kathleen P. Sweeney
Deputy Solicitor General/Chief Counsel Civil Appeals Section
State Bar Number 011118
Submitting comment on behalf of the Arizona Attorney General's Office
Firm State Bar Number 14000
2005 N. Central Ave.
Phoenix, AZ 85004
[email protected]
(602) 542-8027

The Attorney General’s Office supports this petition. The process of creating, reviewing, and correcting tables of citations can be very time-consuming. If tables of citations are no longer sufficiently useful to justify this expenditure of time because alternate means of navigating briefs such as searchable text and hyperlinks have replaced them, they should no longer be required. Given the large number of briefs that the Attorney General’s Office files, making tables of citations optional would save the Office a substantial amount of time and resources.

DAVID J. EUCHNER, SB#021768
33 N. Stone Ave., 21st Floor
Tucson, AZ 85701
(520) 724-9107
[email protected]

Attached is my comment, in my individual capacity.

The Pima County Bar Association supports this Petition. Please see attached comment.

Commenter:
James W. Rappaport

Committee:
Pima County Bar Association, Rules Committee

Mailing address:
177 North Church Avenue
Suite No. 101
Tucson, AZ 85701

Phone Number:
(520) 623-8258

Email address:
[email protected]

Bar Number:
031699

Kevin D. Heade
Arizona State Bar #029909
P.O. Box 2457
Florence, AZ 85132
(480) 251-8534
[email protected]

Pursuant to Rule 28(e) of the Arizona Supreme Court Rules, I, Kevin D. Heade, recommend that this Court reject the proposal outlined in the Petition to eliminate the requirement that appellate briefs contain a Table of Citations. In my experience, the inclusion of a Table of Citations is for the benefit of the opposing party, the Court, and others such as amicus curiae who wish to quickly and easily grasp the legal reasoning of a brief. Striking them will cause more inconvenience than it saves. I have attached a comment explaining my reasons for opposing the proposal outlined in the Petition.

The Petition understates the utility of Tables of Citations and overstates the difficulty of preparing them.

The Petition acknowledges that Tables of Citations are a “navigational tool.” (Petition at 2, 7.) The Tables not only direct the readers to the pages on which an authority is cited, they provide the means to observe which authorities are most relied on (or ignored), which authorities are cited by one side and not the other, and which authorities are cited in one place in the brief but not others. Thus, Tables provide a service to all readers – judges, clerks, staff attorneys, and opposing counsel.

Those benefits are not readily available to a reader without a Table of Citations. Searching with the Control/F find function is not helpful because the on-screen reader does not necessarily know what authorities to search for. And readers who prefer to print briefs cannot search electronically.

Although readers could create their own Tables, that task should not be imposed on judges and their staff, or opposing counsel.

Tables are not so difficult to prepare that the minor difficulty outweighs the benefits. Those with Westlaw can use its Drafting Assistant to both prepare the Table and link the authorities. Microsoft Word also has a table-creating function. And there may be other tools this commentator is unaware of.

As to cost, the Petitioners assume that Tables are being created by lawyers at their hourly rates. Not so. Creating a Table is a clerical function for the lawyer’s secretary. Although the lawyer should proof read the Table and compare it to the text, it takes only a few tenths of an hour to do so.

Finally, giving the drafter the option of making a Table is not a good solution. It is my opponent’s Table that I want and need. If Tables are to be optional, the option should be given to the reader. But that is not a better solution because judicial readers cannot exercise the option at the briefing stage.

The Petition should be denied.

Charles W. Wirken, AZ Bar 4276
Gust Rosenfeld, PLC
1 E. Washington St., Suite 1600
Phoenix, AZ 85004
[email protected]
602.257.7959

Comment of the State Bar of Arizona

Lisa M. Panahi
Bar No. 023421
General Counsel
State Bar of Arizona
4201 N. 24th St., Suite 100
Phoenix, AZ 85016
602-340-7236
[email protected]

Casey D. Ball (#034987)
2005 N. Central Ave.
Phoenix, AZ 85004
(602) 542-8137
[email protected]

Kelley M. Jancaitis (#025555)
2800 N. Central Ave, Suite 1600
Phoenix, Arizona 85004
(602) 271-7701
[email protected]

Petitioners' Reply to Comments for R-23-0026