Effective January 1, 2021, all documents filed in any Florida appellate court
[both briefs AND motions, etc] will have to use one of two new fonts. The “old”
required fonts – Times New Roman 14 pt and Courier 12 pt – are out, and the
“new” required fonts [that look like this – Bookman Old Style 14 pt, and
Arial 14 pt] are now mandatory. Now, before you skip the rest of this memo and
pass this off as way too nerdy, stay with me a second.
While the new rule – 9.045 – only expressly applies to appellate courts, the
fonts dictated for use in the Appellate Rules inevitably flow into trial practice. That
is the main reason why most of us use Times New Roman [or Courier] today.
But the real question is Why do appellate judges get to drive this bus? I
think the answer is deceptively simple – Appellate Judges are a tad older than most
lawyers and most other Judges and, well, they have a lot of reading to do. They
want the print large and legible. Kind of John Hancock-style.
So, my strong recommendation is that we ALL switch to whichever of the
two style you like better. Here is how they look in a paragraph.
Bookman Old Style [it sounds like a lager beer to me, a la
Heileman’s Old Style Lager Beer] looks a little like Times New
Roman, but the letters are equally spaced, so it is much more
spread out. As a result, you will not fit as many words on a page
[which is why the Appellate Rules now limit size by words and not
pages]. But if you want the Judge to actually read what you are
filing, make it easier for him or her. Bookman Old Style [a serif style, with little flags at the tops and bottoms of many letters] is
also much more ADA compliant than Times. This will become my
choice going forward.
If you like a san-serif style [without the little flags or tags at the ends
of letters], then Arial [this style] may be for you. For me, it looks a little
“informal”, but the Judges like it also. So, your choice.
But pick one, and stick with it, whichever court you are in. You will be
better off in the long run if you do not have to worry about which font to use
where. The only real issue: if there is a page limit in a trial court, try to explain to the
trial judge how the nice big, easy-reading Bookman style should allow more pages.
[Someone should do a correlation table for 5, 10, 20, 25-page documents with
Times New Roman versus the word count for the same document printed in
Bookman Old Style 14 Pt. And whoever does, I will treat to a nice
cold Bookman Old Style Lager the next time I see them