Keeping Tabs - Fall 2021

lock quotes have probably never been read by
anyone.” 3 If your goal is to be read, give your
audience something they’ll actually read.
2. They’re a poor use of space. Most courts
have page limits on written submissions. Each
page is valuable real estate. That precious resource
should not be squandered on a block
quote that’s unlikely to be read. Block quotes
are especially wasteful when used (as they often
are) to canvass high-level legal principles. But,
as Justice John Laskin pointed out, while on the
Ontario Court of Appeal, judges “do not need
four paragraphs on the standard of review of
a trial judge’s finding of fact or five paragraphs
on the summary judgment test under Rule 20.” 4
Devote that limited space instead to why, under
the applicable legal test, you should prevail.
For present purposes we’re not concerned
with why this is. We’re interested in halting it.
To that end, we lay out here a few arguments
against block quotes and offer some suggestions
about how to limit their use.
Quoter Beware
There’s an abundance of literature on the
shortcomings of block quotes. Sadly, the lessons
from it too often go unheeded. We think
these are among the most compelling of them:
1. No one reads them. That often includes us.
A block quote invites readers to flit right past
it by “highlight[ing] just what part of the page
they can skip.” 1 Legal practitioners far and wide
acknowledge this sad but true fact. 2 The late jurist
Antonin Scalia and lexicographer Bryan Garner
have even amusingly speculated that “many
3. They’re counterproductive. Justice Stratas of
the Federal Court of Appeal has observed that
block quotes tend to “dissipate[] the force of the
argument” and result in submissions “like an unpacked,
fluffy snowball” that, when thrown, “the
target hardly feels”. 5 Submissions with “short
snippets from authorities”, on the other hand,
are more “like a snowball packed tightly into an
iceball”: “Throw it, and the target really feels it”. 6
Practically speaking, by their nature block quotes
tend to result in lengthier submissions. Shorter is
better. Lengthier submissions “run the risk that,
although they will be read, they may not be read
carefully and fully digested”. 7
4. They’re poor advocacy. Anyone can copy
and paste. An advocate’s job is “to advocate,
not to recite cold language on the assumption
that the reader will study it and connect it to the
present case.” 8 Paraphrasing, in contrast, does
away with the risk that the point you’re trying to
convey with your block quote is lost in transmission.
Think of the points you’re trying to make
as an hors-d’œuvre: you should serve them to
your reader on a silver platter, not give them
directions to the kitchen.
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