A client asked me this morning if she could just write a letter to the judge telling her side of the story.  The answer is no.  The rules require certain formalities and a letter will usually be returned by the clerk or the judge with a polite note.

Our law comes from England where each cause of action had a formality which had to be pled specifically.  Today we have notice pleading which allows for more leeway, but there are still many vestiges  of formal pleading left.

For example, one of my partners, John Thyden, once filed a Motion to Crave Oyer in a lawsuit.

I happened to be talking to his opposing counsel about another case one day when the conversation strayed to my partner’s motion.  He told me that the lawyers in his firm had to look up “crave oyer” in Black’s Law Dictionary to see what it meant.

It means to demand to see a copy of the document being sued upon, like a contract, a promissory note or a deed.

From then on, said the attorney, Thyden was referred to at that law firm as the “Crave Oyer Lawyer”.