Convention taught generations of us to number the pages of the preliminary sections of our briefs in “romanette” (lower case Roman numerals, i, ii, iii, iv, etc.) and the substantive sections in Arabic (1, 2, 3, etc.). This was never an exact science. Do you include the cover as an implied page “i” and begin numbering with page “ii” or start with “i”? What exactly is a “preliminary” item to be numbered in romanette, anyway? Tables of contents and authorities? Sure. The list of interested persons? Okay. Statements regarding jurisdiction and oral argument? Maybe. Issues presented or statement of the case? Hmmm, …. The practical rule of thumb seemed to be that, whatever the clerk was going to include in assessing your page or word limit would be numbered in Arabic, with everything before that numbered in romanette, as if to say subliminally, “Pssst, these don’t count.”
But with the advent of electronic filing and with briefs increasingly being read on tablets and computer screens, the use of two numbering systems—romanette and then Arabic—has become more than imprecise; it’s a source of confusion. In most, if not all, electronic systems, PDF and otherwise, all pages in a document are counted consecutively from the very beginning to the very end—including the cover, any tabs or dividers, and the pages of any attachments or appendix made part of that single document. In the federal PACER system, this unitary first-page-to-last-page numbering system even appears in the file-stamp legend at the top of each page of your brief. Anyone who has viewed a brief, treatise, or article in PDF knows the frustration of trying to translate the page number in the table of contents to the PDF page number on the screen, because, well, they don’t match. Bookmarks can ameliorate the problem, but won’t eliminate it. How much simpler would it be, how much easier for judges and clerks, if we all counted the covers of our briefs as page 1—as PACER and PDFs already do—and then started showing the numbering on the next page as page 2, carrying those numbers forward through the very end of our submission, including any tabs and attachments.
Appellate lawyers are known for being prickly and prissy about things that pass under the radar of normal folk. (Try talking fonts with a trial lawyer.) And maybe fussing about page numbering is just another example. But anything you can do to make your work clearer and easier to use would seem to be worth considering. So, go ahead, rid yourself of romanette. Those clerks are sharp. They’ll still be able to tell which words count against the limit and which don’t.
But with the advent of electronic filing and with briefs increasingly being read on tablets and computer screens, the use of two numbering systems—romanette and then Arabic—has become more than imprecise; it’s a source of confusion. In most, if not all, electronic systems, PDF and otherwise, all pages in a document are counted consecutively from the very beginning to the very end—including the cover, any tabs or dividers, and the pages of any attachments or appendix made part of that single document. In the federal PACER system, this unitary first-page-to-last-page numbering system even appears in the file-stamp legend at the top of each page of your brief. Anyone who has viewed a brief, treatise, or article in PDF knows the frustration of trying to translate the page number in the table of contents to the PDF page number on the screen, because, well, they don’t match. Bookmarks can ameliorate the problem, but won’t eliminate it. How much simpler would it be, how much easier for judges and clerks, if we all counted the covers of our briefs as page 1—as PACER and PDFs already do—and then started showing the numbering on the next page as page 2, carrying those numbers forward through the very end of our submission, including any tabs and attachments.
Appellate lawyers are known for being prickly and prissy about things that pass under the radar of normal folk. (Try talking fonts with a trial lawyer.) And maybe fussing about page numbering is just another example. But anything you can do to make your work clearer and easier to use would seem to be worth considering. So, go ahead, rid yourself of romanette. Those clerks are sharp. They’ll still be able to tell which words count against the limit and which don’t.
