Carpenter Quoted in Law360 Article on What Litigators Should Do About Mistakes in Briefs

Shook, Hardy & Bacon Partner Andrew Carpenter discusses “What to Do After You’ve Screwed Up a Brief” in an April 4 Law360 article.

In discussing how the court and opposing counsel respond to mistakes in briefs, Carpenter says, “I don’t see any court ever substantively penalizing you for realizing you’ve made a mistake and then getting it right before the court has to tell you. I don’t see any downside to that unless you were pretending to be perfect before you went into court, which I know I’m not, so it’s not going to fool anybody.”

The overall opinion of litigators quoted in the article seems to be that coming clean as quickly as possible is the best code of conduct. Carpenter clarifies, “It's never too late to do a mea culpa, which is a hell of a lot better than trying to fake it.”