How to Write a Statement of Facts

It has two jobs, and which one dominates depends on the document. In an objective office memo, the statement of facts orients a reader who has never seen the file and fixes the factual premises on which your analysis rests, so that if a premise turns out to be wrong the reader knows the analysis changes. In a brief, it is the first and often the best chance to make the judge want to rule for you before you have cited a single case.

The rules assume you will write one. Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 28(a)(6) requires a concise statement of the case setting out the facts relevant to the issues submitted for review, describing the relevant procedural history, and identifying the rulings presented for review, with appropriate references to the record. (The 2013 amendments merged the old separate 'statement of facts' into the statement of the case, but the substance is unchanged, and many practitioners still use internal headings.) Supreme Court Rule 24.1(g) similarly requires a concise statement of the case setting out the facts material to the questions presented, with references to the joint appendix or record.

Trial-level practice is governed mostly by local rules. Many district courts require a separate statement of undisputed material facts on summary judgment — S.D.N.Y. Local Civil Rule 56.1 and N.D. Ill. Local Rule 56.1 are the best-known examples — in numbered paragraphs, each supported by a record citation, with the opponent responding paragraph by paragraph. Check the local rules and the judge's standing order before you write anything.

Include three categories and nothing else. Legally significant facts are those that map onto an element, factor, or exception in your rule; if a fact would change the outcome under the governing test, it goes in. Background facts are the connective tissue a stranger needs to follow the story — who the parties are, what business they were in, how they came into contact. Emotionally significant facts have no doctrinal work to do but affect how a judge feels about the equities; in a persuasive brief they are legitimate, in an objective memo you include them only if they might realistically influence a decisionmaker.

Two discipline rules keep the section honest. First, every fact you rely on in the argument must already appear in the statement of facts; a judge should never meet a decisive fact for the first time on page nineteen. Second, no fact appears in the statement of facts that you do not use somewhere — background excepted. Applying both rules will cut a bloated draft by a third.

Leave out law. The statement of facts is not the place to state the legal standard, cite authority, or characterize conduct in the language of the elements. Writing that the defendant 'acted with deliberate indifference' or that the parties 'formed a contract' converts a fact section into an argument section and invites the reader to discount everything else you say.

Chronological organization is the default and usually the right choice, because human beings understand stories in time order and because causation is easier to see. Topical organization works better when the events are simultaneous, when the dispute involves several unrelated transactions, or when your issues are cleanly separable — a brief challenging both a suppression ruling and a sentencing enhancement may need two factual clusters. Party-by-party organization is a third option in multi-defendant cases where each defendant's conduct is separately analyzed.

Open with an orienting paragraph, not with the earliest fact in the file. One or two sentences identifying the parties, the dispute, and the transaction gives the reader a frame; without it, the first page of a chronology is unintelligible detail. Some practitioners call this the 'hook' or thematic opening, and in a brief it should quietly state your theory of the case in factual terms.

Put the procedural history where the rules require it and keep it brief. On appeal, FRAP 28(a)(6) folds it into the statement of the case; most writers place it after the substantive facts, describing only what the lower court actually decided and on what ground, because the standard of review depends on it. Skip the recitation of every motion and extension.

Persuasion in a fact statement comes from selection, sequence, emphasis, and detail — not from adjectives. Give favorable facts concrete, specific detail and put them in positions of emphasis: the beginning and end of paragraphs, the beginning and end of the section, and the main clause of a sentence. Give unfavorable facts fewer words, place them mid-paragraph in a dependent clause, and pair them with context that blunts them.

Use active voice and a named actor for conduct you want to highlight ('The supervisor deleted the file'), and passive voice or nominalization when you want to soften agency ('The file was deleted during the audit'). Name your client and use a generic label for the opponent — 'Ms. Reyes' versus 'the insurer' — because names humanize and labels abstract. Be consistent throughout the brief.

Do not omit or shade a materially bad fact. Model Rule 3.3(a)(1) forbids knowingly making a false statement of fact to a tribunal, and a technically true but misleading account can violate it; courts also strike briefs and sanction lawyers for mischaracterizing the record. Beyond ethics, your opponent will supply the fact anyway, and the judge will then read your entire statement with suspicion. Include it, state it plainly, and immediately place it in the context that makes it survivable.

In court filings, every factual assertion needs a citation to something in the record. Bluepages Rule B17 of The Bluebook governs citations to court documents and the record, and Table BT1 supplies the standard abbreviations; but local rules and court practice control when they conflict, and many courts prescribe their own record-citation format in the local rules or a scheduling order. Put the citation at the end of the sentence, not the paragraph, so the judge can verify each proposition.

Common forms include (R. 42), (App. 15), (JA 103), (ROA.1234) in some circuits, (Compl. ¶ 12), (Smith Dep. 55:12–18), and (Ex. C at 3). Pin to the page and, for testimony, to the line. Avoid string-citing five sources for one fact; cite the best one.

At summary judgment, Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56(c)(1)(A) requires a party asserting that a fact cannot be or is genuinely disputed to support the assertion by citing to particular parts of materials in the record — depositions, documents, affidavits or declarations, stipulations, admissions, interrogatory answers, or other materials. Rule 56(c)(3) lets the court consider only cited materials, so an uncited fact is functionally nonexistent.

The posture sets the universe of usable facts. On a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, the facts are the well-pleaded allegations of the complaint, taken as true and viewed favorably to the plaintiff, with legal conclusions disregarded under Ashcroft v. Iqbal and Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly; documents attached to or incorporated in the complaint and judicially noticeable materials are also fair game. A defendant who argues its own version of events at this stage has misunderstood the motion.

At summary judgment, the record is the evidentiary materials, and the facts must be stated in the light most favorable to the nonmovant with reasonable inferences drawn in that party's favor. If you represent the movant, your statement of facts should be the undisputed facts, and you should say so; disputed facts help you only if they are immaterial.

On appeal, the facts are frozen as the record made below, and the standard of review dictates the telling. Under clear-error or substantial-evidence review, the appellee recounts the facts as the factfinder found them; the appellant must accept those findings and win on law, or show why the findings cannot stand. De novo review of a legal question frees you somewhat, but never to add facts outside the record.

Read the statement of facts alone, without the argument, and ask whether a stranger would want to rule for your client and could tell you why. If the answer is no, the problem is usually organization or missing detail, not a shortage of adverse adjectives.

Then verify. Check every citation against the actual page, confirm every date and name, confirm no sentence states a legal conclusion, and confirm that every fact used in the argument appears here. In an appellate brief, remember that the statement competes for space under the length limits — FRAP 32(a)(7)(B) caps a principal brief at 13,000 words and a reply at 6,500 — so ruthless cutting is a structural necessity, not a stylistic preference.