Formatting Your Filings: The Importance of Layout and Typography in Pleadings

By Mary Lide

Take a look at your caption page. There’s more to it than meets the eye.

When formatting your filings—the caption page especially—it can never hurt to think about the aesthetics. While court rules are strict about typography, you can still make your filings stand out with a few simple design tips, courtesy of Matthew Butterick’s Typography for Lawyers.

1. Set the table. Using the table tool in Word will help your layout stay clean and neat.
2. Forget the rules. Butterick points out that vertical rules on a caption page should not be darker than the page itself. Moreover, they are often unnecessary, and make the text area seem cramped.
3. Thin it out. Take a look at Butterick’s “Before” and “After” caption pages. He makes the vertical rule in the caption a little thinner, and moves it farther from the text. This brings the caption to the foreground.
4. Focus on font. Do not, we repeat, do not use Times New Roman. As Jay Shepard notes in his article “Small Firms, Big Lawyers: The Perfect Font…to Show You Don’t Care,” Times New Roman has been the universal default font for years. Not changing it signals that you don’t care how your filings look. For courts that do not have specific font requirements, Shepard suggests another font in the serif family, like Adobe Garamond. Note: For Supreme Court filings, you are required to use a 12pt font in the Century Family.

First impressions are important—keep the design in mind, and your caption will command attention.