How silly to complain that the Appellate Division doesn’t read our briefs! You don’t read your junk mail, why should they read theirs?
When you toss your junk mail into the trash without opening it, it’s not because it’s missing a Table of Authorities or the margins aren’t regulation size. It’s because you already know you don’t want whatever it is they’re selling. You already have a cemetery plot. You don’t need a canoe. You’re never going to read 50 issues of “The Economist,” even at six cents apiece.
Appellate courts already know they don’t want your product. Who needs to hear about problems? When they say “appellate review” they mean sitting in the grandstand waving to the parade.
But junk mail (or “direct mailing” as they say in the biz) must be effective or it wouldn’t be a billion-dollar business. All we need is a makeover.
Scene: Getting & Spending Ad Agency conference room. The only decor is a large banner reading, “They only think they don’t want it.”
Harry Hotshit: Guys, I’m just thinking out loud here, but how about putting on the cover: OPEN THIS BRIEF TO RECEIVE A FREE GIFT!
Tiffany Sellwell: They’ll never go for such blatant bribery. What about OPEN THIS BRIEF AND LOSE 10 POUNDS INSTANTLY!!!
Grant Gogetter: That sounds like a threat. Why not disguise the brief to look like a check or a summons, with nothing but a mysterious P.O. box in Oklahoma to show where it’s from. That’ll get them to open it up and who knows, maybe even read a few pages.
Harry Hotshit: Guys, I’ve got it! Enclose a calendar with photos of the client in his or her natural habitat. If World Wildlife can make a rhinoceros look adorable, we can do the same for –
Tiffany Sellwell: And T-shirts and tote bags saying, “I’d Rather Be Affirming”!
Grant Gogetter: And boxer shorts. Get it? briefs?
All concur.
Like all direct mail, it works once. “Greatest Story Ever Told” … not so much.