Pleadings Review Checklist

Confirm the caption names the correct court (federal vs. state, district, division) and the assigned judge. A complaint captioned for the wrong division is one of the most common rejections at the clerk's window.

Pull the docket from PACER or the state e-filing portal and match every party name and the case number character-for-character. Trustee/representative capacities ("as Trustee of...") are commonly dropped on amended pleadings.

Font (often 12 or 14 pt Times/Century), margins, line spacing, footnote treatment, and line numbering vary by district and even by judge's standing order. Check the judge's individual rules in addition to the local rules.

Federal briefs are typically capped at 25 pages or a word count under FRAP/local rules; many state courts cap motion briefs at 15. Run Word's word count excluding caption, signature block, and certificate of service.

For each count, line up the elements from the controlling jury instructions or treatise and confirm a corresponding factual allegation in the body. Missing elements are the easiest 12(b)(6) target.

Punitive damages, attorney's fees, and injunctive relief require a statutory or contractual hook. Strike from the prayer for relief anything you cannot support with citation.

Conclusory allegations ("Defendant acted negligently") fail in federal court. Each element needs factual content sufficient to make the claim plausible — names, dates, statements, sequence of events.

Send a redline with element-by-element notes back to the drafting associate. Do not let a flagged claim proceed to client review — fix the pleading first, then circulate.

Verify the SOL date in the matter docket against the filing date with at least one business day of buffer. Discovery rule, tolling, and continuing-violation theories should be pled affirmatively when the SOL is close.

Identify the registered agent or service address for each corporate defendant; confirm waiver-of-service letters are drafted under FRCP 4(d) where applicable. Foreign defendants invoke Hague Convention timelines that can add months.

Chambers copies, courtesy hyperlinks, proposed orders, redaction of personal identifiers under FRCP 5.2 — all live in the standing order, not the local rules. Pull the most recent version from the judge's chambers page.

Use sequential exhibit letters (A, B, C) or numbers consistent with the local rule, with a cover sheet for each. Confirm each exhibit referenced in the body has a matching attachment — a missing Exhibit C is the second-most-common clerk rejection after caption errors.

Every "Ex. A at 12:5-15" needs to actually point to that line. Pin cite errors are routinely caught by opposing counsel and used to suggest carelessness on the underlying argument.

Federal practice accepts 28 U.S.C. § 1746 unsworn declarations under penalty of perjury; many state courts still require notarization. Confirm the affiant has personal knowledge of every paragraph — hearsay attestations get stricken.

Read the pleading aloud or use a TTS pass — most typos slip past silent reading. Watch for find-and-replace artifacts where a party name was changed mid-draft.

Verify every case citation in Westlaw or Lexis to confirm it is good law, then run the cite-checker (BriefCheck, CiteRight) for form. Look for "abrogated by" or "overruled by" flags — a brief leaning on bad law is a sanctions risk.

Confirm the Statement of Facts tells a coherent story, the Argument tracks the elements identified earlier, and headings are persuasive (full-sentence point headings, not topic labels).

Flag the specific paragraphs where you need client verification — names, dates, dollar figures, factual narrative. Note privilege and instruct the client not to forward outside the engagement.

Apply the client's edits, then re-run the legal sufficiency check on any paragraph that was substantively rewritten. A client-rewritten factual paragraph is the most common path to an unintentionally weakened claim.

Amended pleadings often add defendants, third-party defendants, or witnesses who weren't in the original conflicts run. Search the conflicts database against current clients, former clients, and adverse parties under Rules 1.7 and 1.9.

Document the hit, the analysis, and the decision (decline / accept with waiver / screen). A waiver letter signed by the affected client(s) must be in the file before filing.

Each factual contention has evidentiary support; each legal contention is warranted by existing law or a non-frivolous extension. Note any claim made on "information and belief" with the supporting basis in the file memo.

File no later than 4 hours before the midnight cutoff to leave room for portal errors. Save the Notice of Electronic Filing (NEF) and confirmation receipt to the matter file — that is your proof of timely filing.