The Appellate Record : Texas Appellate Lawyer & Attorney Kendall Gray for Fifth Circuit & Supreme Court Appeals

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Regular readers will remember the recent post where I kvetched about the tendency of SCOTUS judges to write "page turners"--and not in a good way.  Those are opinions in which you can't tell what is going on for lack of a good introductory paragraph to help you organize the information.  Instead you must wade through recitations of legal history, factual history, procedural history, and sometimes history history, all while wondering:

Is this going to be on the test?

If that post was a wag of my blogging finger, consider this a tip of my bloggorial chapeau.  For in addition to being the Chuck Norris of the legal world, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Texas shows his federal brethren how it is supposed to be done.

Consider the introductory paragraph from Grant Thornton v. Prospect High Income Fund.  It gives you enough information to fully understand what the issue is, why it is important, who wins and why:

Certified accountants audit companies for many purposes, not least of which is to provide corporate directors with an objective assessment of their companies’ performance. Audits are also prepared to give information to a specific investor who the auditor knows will rely on its contents. We must decide whether the law imposes an obligation on the auditor to provide an accurate accounting not to the corporation or known investor, but to anyone who reads and relies on it. We conclude that it does not. Likewise, we hold that the particular investors involved in this case could not have justifiably relied on the audit reports as to purchases made after they knew the corporation was at risk of financial ruin, and they may not substitute their escrow agent’s reliance for their own without also being bound by its knowledge. Finally, we reject the investors’ “holder” claims—claims not that they bought or sold securities based on the auditor’s reports, but that they held them when they otherwise would not have—in the absence of a direct communication with the auditors. For these reasons, we reverse in part the court of appeals’ judgment and render judgment that the investors take nothing.

All of this comes in the first paragraph. And because it does, any other page in the opinion makes sense.  The opinion hangs together whether it is read straight through (which, let's face it, hardly ever happens) or in single issue snatches while writing your own brief.  And because you know how the story ends, you never have to guess about which facts or procedural events are important. 

It's not much of a way to write a mystery or a thriller, but it's the perfect way to write your brief if you want it to be read and understood. 

Or you could go for mystery.

So here's to you, Mr. Good Summary Introductory Paragraph Guy.  We doff our collective hat.