DALLAS (July 14, 2014)—A brief written by Susman Godfrey Partner Jonathan Bridges has been praised as among the “best ever” in the newly released edition of a highly regarded book on legal writing.
In The Winning Brief (Third Edition, 2014), respected legal writing expert Bryan A. Garner highlights the brief written by Bridges in Maria Antonieta Martinez-Aguero v. Humberto Gonzalezsubmitted to the U.S. Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit. The brief addressed the question of whether the protections offered by the U.S. Constitution’s Fourth and Fifth Amendments applied to a nonresident alien attacked on U.S. soil by an INS agent. The complete brief can be viewed here:
The document can be found here.
“How good is this brief?” Garner writes in The Winning Brief. “Let’s just say that many experienced appellate lawyers have told me they consider it to be the best they’ve ever seen: a beautiful marriage of rhetorical skill, thorough research, and humane lawyering.”
The editor-in-chief of Black’s Law Dictionary, Garner is the author or editor of 20 books, including Making Your Case: The Art of Persuading Judges, co-written by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. He is also the author of the grammar and usage chapter of the famed Chicago Manual of Style. Garner previously included Bridges’ brief in the 2011 edition of his book Advanced Legal Writing & Editing.
A partner in Susman Godfrey’s Dallas office, Bridges handles high-stakes commercial litigation, appearing regularly in state and federal courts nationwide. He is also a gifted writer: As an undergraduate student at Friends University, Bridges was a four-time recipient of the Mary Hamilton Neary Writing Award – an endowed scholarship and the university’s highest writing honor. He continued honing his analytical writing skills in his graduate studies (MA, summa cum laude, Ball State University) before earning his law degree at Notre Dame University, where he served as editor-in-chief of the Law Review.
Bridges has been named a “Rising Star” by Super Lawyers, Law & Politics Magazine (Thomson Reuters, 2005-2007) and a “Future Star” by Benchmark Litigation’s Guide to America’s Leading Litigation Firms and Attorneys (2009-2014).
