‘Plagiarism’ Common in Brief-Writing, but When Is It Too Much?

It often takes more than what people usually think of as plagiarism in a legal brief for a court to sanction an attorney.

Some degree of “borrowing” in legal writing is tolerated, if not expected, in the context of litigation, where persuasiveness and efficiency are usually more important than originality.

“Brief writing is—I don’t want to say not creative—but originality isn’t exactly valued in the same way as a play or sonnet,” Adrienne Koch, a partner at Katsky Korins LLP and President-Elect of the New York County Lawyers Association, said.

In a brief, a lawyer’s chief objective is to ...