Edit

Cut a brief down to the page limit

Prices every section by what it buys with the court, then cuts in three passes so the argument that survives is the one you chose, not the one that happened to sit near the end.

About 20 minintermediateLitigation

Your prompt5,695 characters

Still to fill in: The over-length draft, The limit and how it is counted, Court and local rule

RoleYou are a brief editor who has made the limit on the morning a filing was due and learned that the last three pages are never the cheapest three pages. You cut by what a passage buys with the court, not by where it sits on the page. You will not trade a record cite for a sentence of advocacy, and when the limit means an argument has to come out rather than shrink, you say so instead of compressing four arguments into unreadable mush.What I needBring the draft below under The limit and how it is counted for filing in Court and local rule, and tell me what the cuts cost me.InputsDraft: The over-length draft Limit and counting method: The limit and how it is counted Court and rule: Court and local rule The argument I will not lose: The argument you will not lose Already locked in: Already off the tableHow to work this1. Count first and say so. Report the draft's current length in the unit The limit and how it is counted uses and the exact gap. If you are estimating because the unit is pages and you can only count words, say that the number is an estimate and give the assumption behind it. 2. Price every heading and every paragraph in one line: what it buys with this court. Sort each into exactly one tier: decides the motion, supports something that decides it, answers a point they will raise, costs nothing to lose. 3. Cut in three passes and keep them separate. Pass one is compression that loses no content: throat-clearing openers, block quotes that can become a parenthetical, string cites past the two strongest, "for the foregoing reasons," and any sentence whose only job is to announce the next one. Pass two takes the bottom tier. Pass three, only if you are still over, removes whole arguments. 4. Touch none of this: record and transcript cites, jurisdictional and standing allegations, quoted operative language, Already off the table, and The argument you will not lose. State whether the caption, tables, certificate of compliance, and signature block count toward The limit and how it is counted in Court and local rule, and mark that [CONFIRM - local rule] rather than asserting it. 5. If pass three is necessary, recommend which argument comes out, say in one sentence what dropping it costs, and say whether a footnote or a single sentence preserves it for appeal or for a later motion. 6. Close the arithmetic: starting count, saving from each pass, ending count, and the margin left under The limit and how it is counted. The numbers must add up.Close with these four sections, every time, without being askedAssumptions I made. Every judgment about what a passage was doing, and every count I estimated rather than measured. Mark each [verify] or [safe]. If I assumed a section is excluded from the limit, say so; that assumption is worth pages. Where this is weakest. The two or three cuts most likely to have taken something the court wanted. Quote the passage and name what the reader no longer has: a fact, a concession that bought goodwill, an answer to a point they will now raise unanswered. What only you can decide. Options with tradeoffs, never a bare flag. At minimum: whether to drop an argument or compress every argument. Dropping one leaves the survivors fully argued and signals confidence, but forfeits the point; compressing all of them preserves every issue and risks a brief where no argument is developed enough to win. Also yours: whether anything in Already off the table is worth the pages it costs now that you can see the price. What would make this materially better. Ranked by impact: the local rule text on what the count excludes, the opposing brief so the answers can be sized to what they actually argued, the standard of review if it is contested, and whether the court has granted over-length motions in this case before.Output formatOpen with the count and the gap in two lines. Then the cut plan as a table: Section | Current length | Tier | Action | Words or pages saved. Then the three-pass arithmetic. Then paste-ready replacement text for every passage you compressed, keyed to its location. Then a separate list of anything removed entirely, each with the one-line cost. Then the four sections.Never do this- If your cut plan would work on any brief in any court, it is too generic. Every tier assignment has to name what that passage does in this case. - No hedging filler. "Arguably could be shortened" is not an action. Say compress, cut, or keep. Do not tell me to consult an attorney about my own brief; I am the attorney. - Never shorten, reformat, or invent a citation to save space, and never drop a pin cite. If a cite looks malformed, mark it [UNVERIFIED - check before filing] and leave it as written. - Where you cannot tell whether Court and local rule counts a section toward The limit and how it is counted, say you do not know and flag it. Do not smooth over the gap with a confident number. - Do not pad the commentary. If the draft comes under the limit after pass one, report that and stop. Length is not value.Before you answer- Do the pass-by-pass numbers add up to the ending count? - Is every record cite, pin cite, and quotation byte-identical to the input? - Did any compression turn a qualified statement into an unqualified one? - Did I cut anything from The argument you will not lose or Already off the table? - Would this plan be useless on a different brief? It should be.

The run walks turn one, the pressure test, the follow-up, and a check on what came back. The Cockpit adds driver's-seat tunes. Your values come with either one.

Pressure-test it

Makes the AI switch hats and attack its own answer.

The judge's clerk reads your brief and the other side's back to back, and the other side came in under the limit without dropping an argument. Work through the compressed version as the clerk would: mark the passage where the compression shows, the cut that left a hole the opposing brief walks straight through, and the dropped argument the clerk notices is missing because the other brief answers it anyway. Tell me what goes back in and what I cut instead to pay for it.

Go deeper

Pushes the work further once the basics are right.

The certificate of compliance is the last thing I sign and the first thing the clerk checks. Produce the refiled package: the final count with the method used to reach it, the certificate of compliance text for Court and local rule with every number filled from that count, and a short file note recording which argument came out and why, so the record shows a choice was made rather than space running out.

4Check what came backPaste the answer here and work a checklist against this prompt's own rules.

Before you run it

What to gather first

The full draft including headings, footnotes, and block quotes
The exact limit and whether it counts words, pages, or lines
The local rule on what is excluded from the count: tables, certificate, signature block
Which argument you are not willing to lose
Anything a client or co-counsel has already insisted stays in

Watch for

Word and page counts differ between Word, the PDF, and the clerk's method. Run your own count in the tool your court accepts before filing, and never file on a count the model produced.
What the limit excludes varies by court and sometimes by judge. Caption, tables, certificate, and signature block are counted in some forums and not others. Check the rule, not the model.
Compression is where qualifiers die. A sentence that said "on the present record" and now says nothing has changed your position, not your word count.
Dropping an argument can waive it. Before you cut a section, confirm whether the issue must be raised now to be preserved.
Do not paste unfiled work product or client-confidential material unless your firm's AI policy and the engagement terms permit it.

What comes back

The current count and the gap, then a cut plan table (Section, Current length, Tier, Action, Saved), the three-pass arithmetic, paste-ready replacement text for every compressed passage, a separate list of anything removed entirely with its cost, and the four closing sections.

See an example of what you’ll get

Count: 8,410 words against a 7,000-word limit. Over by 1,410. Counting note: [CONFIRM - local rule] I have counted the caption, headings, and footnotes and excluded the tables, certificate, and signature block. If this circuit counts footnotes separately or includes the corporate disclosure statement, the gap changes by roughly 300 words. Cut plan | Section | Words | Tier | Action | Saved | |---|---|---|---|---| | Intro | 610 | Decides the motion | Compress: cut the two-sentence procedural wind-up, move the April 14 email to sentence one | 95 | | Statement of the Case | 1,240 | Supports | Compress: replace the block quote from the scheduling order with a parenthetical | 180 | | Standard of Review | 340 | Answers a point they will raise | Compress: de novo is conceded at Blue Br. 11; cut the case string to the two best | 150 | | Arg. I (repudiation) | 2,180 | Decides the motion | Keep. This is the argument you said you will not lose | 0 | | Arg. II (cover damages) | 1,490 | Supports | Compress: the three replacement-vendor invoices do not each need a paragraph | 135 | | Arg. III (mitigation) | 1,040 | Answers a point they will raise | Compress: cut the policy paragraph, keep the UCC text | 80 | | Arg. IV (attorney fees) | 510 | Costs nothing to lose | Cut entirely. See below | 510 | | Conclusion | 90 | Supports | Compress: "for the foregoing reasons" out | 20 | | Footnotes 4, 7, 11 | 340 | Costs nothing to lose | Cut. All three restate text above them | 260 | Arithmetic. Start 8,410. Pass one (compression, no content lost) saves 640, leaving 7,770. Pass two (bottom tier: footnotes 4, 7, 11 and the intro wind-up remainder) saves 430, leaving 7,340. Still 340 over, so pass three removes Argument IV at 510, leaving 6,830 words, 170 under the limit. Pass-one replacement text, Standard of Review (replaces lines 3 to 9): > BetaCorp does not dispute that review is de novo. (Blue Br. 11.) *Aegis Ins. Servs. v. 7 World Trade Co.*, 737 F.3d 166, 176 (2d Cir. 2013). Removed entirely. Argument IV, the fee request. Cost: you lose the fee argument on appeal unless the panel reaches it on the contract's own fee-shifting clause, which the district court never ruled on. It survives in one sentence in the Conclusion: "Acme also requests its fees under Section 14.3, as it did below. (ER 212.)" That preserves the ask at a cost of 19 words. [CONFIRM - whether this circuit treats an unbriefed fee request as abandoned; if it does, cut Argument III's policy paragraph instead and keep IV.] --- Assumptions I made. That footnotes count toward the limit here [verify: this is worth 340 words and it is the single assumption most likely to be wrong]. That "de novo" is genuinely conceded at Blue Br. 11 rather than conceded as to one issue only [verify]. That the scheduling-order block quote is not being used to preserve a separate timeliness argument [safe: nothing in the draft relies on it]. Where this is weakest. Two cuts. First, the Argument III policy paragraph. It was the only place the brief gave the panel a reason to want to rule for you rather than a reason it must, and BetaCorp's brief is heavy on equity. Second, footnote 7. It restated the text, but it also carried the only record cite for the March hiring numbers, and that cite now appears nowhere. Put ER 61 to 72 back into the body sentence. What only you can decide. Whether to drop Argument IV or compress all four arguments to keep it. Dropping it leaves Arguments I through III fully developed and signals that you know which ground wins, but forfeits fees on appeal if the panel will not reach the clause on its own. Compressing all four preserves every issue and leaves each one roughly 130 words thinner, which on Argument I means cutting the repudiation-versus-renegotiation discussion to a single paragraph. Second call that is yours: whether the two paragraphs on the March board minutes stay. You locked them in, but they now cost 210 words that would buy back the Argument III policy paragraph. What would make this materially better. Ranked: (1) The circuit rule text on what the count excludes, which is worth 340 words and would settle the footnote question. (2) BetaCorp's answering brief, so Argument III can be sized to what they actually argued about mitigation rather than to what they might. (3) Whether the fee clause was ruled on below, which decides whether Argument IV is a real loss or a formality.

Why this prompt is built the way it is

## Framework 1. **Count honestly first.** Report the current length in the unit the rule uses and the size of the gap. If the rule counts words and the draft was measured in pages, say the count is an estimate. 2. **Price every section.** One line per heading and per paragraph: what it buys with the court. Four tiers, from decides-the-motion down to costs-nothing-to-lose. 3. **Cut in three passes, in order.** Compression that loses no content. Then the bottom tier. Then, only if still over, whole arguments. 4. **Protect the untouchables.** Record cites, jurisdictional statements, quoted operative language, and anything the local rule requires. Say which of those count toward the limit and which are excluded, and confirm rather than assume. 5. **Name what has to go.** If an argument must be dropped, recommend it with a reason, say what it costs, and say whether a footnote or a single sentence preserves it. 6. **Show the arithmetic.** Starting count, saving from each pass, ending count, margin under the limit.