Here’s the dilemma. You cannot see how you could possibly reduce your brief to meet the court’s (stingy!) page limit. Every word , every sub-sub-section you slaved over is precious. What to do? You file a motion with the court to submit your overstuffed, er, overlength brief.

The court’s response? Instead of simply denying your motion, the court denies your motion AND publicly humiliates you by stating:

A review of the proposed, twenty-nine-page motion’s commencement confirms that a modicum of informed editorial revision easily reduces the motion to twenty-five pages without a reduction in substance.

As if that were not enough, the court redlines your own brief, demonstrating such an informed, editorial revision using your own overblown content, instructs you to concentrate on “reducing redunancy, verbosity, and legalism” by consulting Bryan Garner‘s The Elements of Legal Style, and gives you a do-over.

From this:

To this:

 

Just another reminder that judges, like normal people, do not like to read 10 words when 1 word will do.