Whiteboards availability in High courts and Supreme courts of USA and UK

Question

Are Whiteboards available separately for the two lawyers in High courts and Supreme courts of USA and UK to explain their cases?

If No, Do you recommend to have Whiteboards in the courts?

Answer 1

US Supreme Court

No

Briefs

According to the Supreme Court's rules, the petitioner has a certain amount of time to write a brief, not to exceed 50 pages, putting forth his/her legal case concerning the issue on which the Court granted review. After the petitioner's brief has been filed, the other party, known as the respondent, is given a certain amount of time to file a respondent's brief. This brief is also not to exceed 50 pages.

After the initial petitions have been filed, the petitioner and respondent are permitted to file briefs of a shorter length that respond to the other party's respective position. If not directly involved in the case, the U.S. Government, represented by the Solicitor General, can file a brief on behalf of the government. With the permission of the Court, groups that do not have a direct stake in the outcome of the case, but are nevertheless interested in it, may file what is known as an amicus curiae (Latin for "friend of the court") brief providing their own arguments and recommendations for how the case should be decided.

Oral arguments

Each case is allotted an hour for arguments. During this time, lawyers for each party have a half hour to make their best legal case to the Justices. Most of this time, however, is spent answering the Justices' questions. The Justices tend to view oral arguments not as a forum for the lawyers to rehash the merits of the case as found in their briefs, but for answering any questions that the Justices may have developed while reading their briefs.

No room for whiteboards.

UK Supreme Court

No

Application

An appellant needs to provide four copies of

• the application for permission to appeal;

• the order appealed against and the order refusing permission to appeal to the Supreme Court;

• the official transcript of the judgment of the court appealed from;

• the orders made by all other courts in the proceedings;

• the transcript of the final judgments of all other courts in the proceedings; and

• a document which sets out the history of the proceedings.

Documents

... the documents which are needed for an appeal hearing. These are

• a statement of facts and issues - this document has to be agreed by all the parties to the appeal;

• the appendix - this includes the documents listed at paragraph 8 above together with other documents which are necessary for understanding the legal issues and the >

• arguments in the appeal; and

• the appellant's case and the respondent's case - these are the statements of the parties' arguments in the appeal: their 'skeleton argument'.

At least two weeks before the hearing date, the appellant must file core volumes which include

• the notice of appeal or re-sealed application for permission to appeal; statement of facts and issues;

• the appellant's and respondent's cases;

• Part I of the appendix; and

• an index to the volumes of authorities.

Hearing

At the hearing, the appellant will have the opportunity to state his arguments first. The respondent to the appeal will then make his submissions and the appellant has a right of 'reply'.

No room for whiteboards here either.

General

Even in a trial court, there will be no whiteboards. Cases are not made up spontaneously like a brainstorming session.

For any significant criminal or civil litigation, both sides will have provided large numbers of highly detailed documents (which term includes non-written things like video, audio, and physical evidence), which will have been argued over and agreed upon long before any hearing. Should issues arise during a hearing, the parties will be given time to make further submissions. No one's using a whiteboard

Summary offences and small-value civil claims dealt with in the lower courts are a bit of a sausage factory, with a magistrate dealing with 40 or more matters in a day. That's about 10-12 minutes each. No one's using whiteboards here either.