Are you two stroking your speaker IDs??

STPHAO/STKPWHR??
EUFPLT/STKPWHR???

I just put a Q or a K in with the STPHAO and EUFPLT and turned them into one stroke. Got to be one of my favorite court shortcuts this past year.

Also, for the attorney names in trial, getting all those down to a single stroke is so cool.

MR-P is whoever your D.A. is for the trial
MR-D is whoever the defendant is -- Mr. Smith
MR-first initial of the other attorney(s) covers the rest.

Are you using STKPWHR-FRPBLGTS for THE COURT:??

Then I just add the vowels for the short answers.

STKPWHRAEUFRPBLGTS THE COURT: Sustained.

OE Overruled.
O Okay.
A All right.
E Yes.
AU Thank you.

Last judge always had to be way polite and squeezed in a "you're welcome" and "good morning," "good afternoon."

So instead of having to stroke the court symbol, I just started using my initial K- with a form of the brief of what he said:

KAFRN THE COURT: Good afternoon.
KORMG THE COURT: Good morning.
KAOURM THE COURT: You're welcome.

Busy calendars??

I stroke the attorneys' names, so it comes up in perfect RT for the judge -- not just "LEFT BANK," "PLF ATT," etc.

So JOENS/JOENS for a D.A. comes up MS. JONES:

I stroke it one more time for their complete appearance:

JOENS/JOENS/JOENS is

<>>MS. JONES: Sasha Jones for the People.

For my defense attorneys, the third stroke just lists their name:

BEJ/BEJ/BEJ is

<>>MR. BEJARANO: Dario Bejarano

If the DA switches up what he usually says, like he uses "for the People" instead of "on behalf of the People," I just put a fix stroke after it to note the difference. Of course if I wasn't so anal, I'd probably let it fly. :)

I've found that they're usually pretty consistent with their appearances, though.


Hope you find something out of that useful to you, Linda.

Oh, and since you mentioned DUI cases, my favorite is SPOI8 for .08

horizontal gaze nystagmus H*G
field sobriety test F-TS
gas chromatograph GAK

Think I just blew the spelling on chromatograph, but whatever it is, it's GAK :)

Linda, I love those court briefs you posted! Under arrest - so easy! When I started reporting, I worked as a fill-in reporter for Alameda County. I've probably been in every courtroom. BUT I never thought about briefing more than the simple briefs I learned in school! Freely and voluntarily was always four strokes for me. What was I thinking!!! Anyway, I may go back to court one day - you never know. Thanks!

Well, if you haven't joined brief club, you should. There's usually a ton of briefs flying out of there. I saw your list under phrases. Those are great.

There's also a Federal Official group and a Officials group. You could always join those two groups and start a discussion looking for briefs. I put the links on your page. Just click on the links and join.