Judge limits Meta’s refiled brief to 5 footnotes after complaining of local rule violation

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Judge limits Meta's refiled brief to 5 footnotes…

Trials & Litigation Judge limits Meta's refiled brief to 5 footnotes after complaining of local rule violation

By Debra Cassens Weiss

July 5, 2022, 12:12 pm CDT

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Lawyers from Kellogg, Hansen, Todd, Figel & Frederick have refiled a brief with zero footnotes after a federal judge tossed a prior version for violating a local court rule.

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg of the District of Columbia said the lawyers, who are representing Meta Platforms Inc., had violated a local rule on excessive footnotes by filing a brief with 19 of them, report Reuters and Law & Crime. The longest footnote was over 150 words in length.

In a July 1 minute order, Boasberg said the footnotes appeared to be “an effort to circumvent page limits.” He ordered the lawyers to refile their brief with no more than five footnotes containing no more than 20 aggregate lines of text.

Boasberg appears to be a stickler over footnotes. He has tossed several briefs for excessive footnotes, including government briefs.

The Kellogg Hansen lawyers had filed the brief in an antitrust suit by the Federal Trade Commission arguing that Facebook had engaged in anti-competitive conduct in the social networking market by acquiring Instagram and WhatsApp.

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