Rule 4-2 - Contents of Briefs(a)Appellants' briefs. The contents of appellants' briefs shall be in the following order.(1)Cover. On the cover of every brief there should appear the number and style of the case in the Supreme Court or Court of Appeals; a designation of the court from which the appeal is taken, and the name of its presiding judge; the title of the brief; and the name or names of counsel who prepared it, including their bar numbers, addresses, telephone numbers, and e-mail addresses.(2)Table of contents. Each brief must include a table of contents. It should reference the page number for the beginning of each of the major sections identified in Rule 4-2(a)(2)-(10). Internal hyperlinks in the table of contents to each section is permissible, but not required.(3)Points on appeal. The appellant shall list and separately number, concisely and without argument, the points relied upon for a reversal of the judgment or decree. The appellee must follow the same sequence and arrangement of points as contained in the appellant's brief and may then state additional points. Either party may insert under any point not more than two citations which the party considers the principal authorities on that point.(4)Table of authorities. The table of authorities shall be an alphabetical listing of authorities with a designation of the page number of the brief on which the authority appears. The authorities shall be grouped as follows: (5)Jurisdictional Statement. Briefs must contain a brief statement, supported by citations to applicable authority and to the pages of the appellate record, demonstrating the appellate court's jurisdiction. The statement must identify: (A) Information demonstrating that the appeal is from a final order or judgment that disposes of all of the parties' claims, or information establishing the appellate court's jurisdiction on some other basis;(B) The filing dates establishing the timeliness of the appeal; and(C) Whether, under Supreme Court Rule 1-2, the appeal should be decided by the Arkansas Supreme Court or the Arkansas Court of Appeals.(6)Statement of the case and the facts. The appellant's brief shall contain a concise statement of the case and the facts without argument. The statement shall identify and discuss all material factual and procedural information contained in the record on appeal. Information in the appellate record is material if the information is essential to understand the case and to decide the issues on appeal. All material information must be supported by citations to the pages of the appellate record where the information can be found.(7)Argument. Arguments shall be presented under subheadings numbered to correspond to the outline of points to be relied upon. For each issue, the applicable standard of review shall be concisely stated at the beginning of the discussion of the issue. Citations of decisions of the Arkansas Supreme Court and Court of Appeals must be from the official reports, and all citations to both official and unofficial reports shall follow the format prescribed in Rule 5-2. All citations of decisions of any other court must state the style of the case and cite the official reporter (including a regional reporter so designated by the issuing court) in which the case is found. If the case is also reported by unofficial publishers, including an unofficial electronic database, one of these should also be cited. Reference in the argument portion of the parties' briefs to material found in the appellate record shall be followed by a reference to the page number of the appellate record at which such material may be found.(8)Request for Relief. The appellant shall request, with specificity, all relief sought on appeal. (9)Certificate of service. All briefs must include a certificate of service evidencing service of the brief in compliance with Rule 4-4(e).(10) Certificate of Compliance with Administrative Order No. 19, Administrative Order 21 Sec. 9, and With Word-Count Limitations. All briefs must include a statement that the brief complies with (1) Administrative Order No. 19's requirements concerning confidential information; (2) Administrative Order 21, Section 9, which states that briefs shall not contain hyperlinks to external papers or websites, and (3) the word-count limitations identified in Rule 4-2(d). The person preparing the certificate may rely on the word count of the word-processing system used to prepare the document. The certificate must state the number of words in the document.(b)Appellees' briefs. Appellees' briefs shall conform to the requirements of Rule 4-2(a) except that appellees may, but are not required to, submit a jurisdictional statement and a statement of the case and facts. Appellees may adopt by reference all or part of the appellant's jurisdictional statement or statement of the case and the facts and may respond to or supplement those statements if the appellee controverts them or believes them to be insufficient. (c)Reply Briefs. Reply briefs shall contain a cover, a table of contents, a table of authorities an argument, a certificate of service, and a certificate of compliance with Administrative Order No. 19 and with the word-count limitations contained in Rule 4-2(d).(d)Word-Count Limitations: Briefs shall comply with the word-count limitations identified below, and only the jurisdictional statement, the statement of the case and the facts, the argument, and the request for relief shall be counted against these limitations. The cover, the table of contents, the points on appeal, the table of authorities, the certificate of service, the certificate of compliance, and any list of adverse rulings required by Rule 4-3(a) shall not count against these limitations.(1)Appellants' brief and appellees' briefs. Appellants' briefs and appellees' briefs shall be no longer than 8600 words.(2)Reply briefs. Reply briefs shall be no longer than 2875 words.(3)Appellees/cross-appellants' briefs. If an appellee is also a cross-appellant, the argument on cross-appeal shall appear after the appellee's argument in the brief, and appellee/cross-appellant's brief shall be no longer than 14,325 words.(4)Reply/cross-appellees' briefs. If the appellant is also a cross-appellee, the cross-appellee's argument shall follow the appellant's argument in reply, and the reply/cross-appellee's brief shall be no longer than 11,475 words.(e)Motions for expansion of word-count limitations. Motions for an expansion of the word-count limitations must set forth the reason or reasons for the request, must state that a good faith effort to comply with this rule has been made, and must specify the number of additional words requested.(f)Citation to electronic record. Citation to the circuit clerk's portion of the electronic record shall be enclosed in parentheses, shall include the letters "RP" (which is short for "Record-Pleadings"), and shall include the page number or numbers where the cited information can be found in the circuit clerk's portion of the record. Citation to the court reporter's portion of the record shall be in the same format but shall include the letters "RT" (which is short for "Record-Transcript"). For example, citation to page 57 of the circuit clerk's portion would be "(RP 57 )," and citation to page 456 of the court reporter's transcript would be "(RT 456 )." A range of pages should be cited as "(RP 231-239 ) (RT 457-459 )," and a series of page numbers should be cited as "(RP 7, 67, 231 ) (RT 45, 334 )."Ark. R. Sup. Ct. & Ct. App. 4-2
Amended by per curiam order March 31, 2011-new subsection b4; amended March 13, 2014, effective 7/1/2014; amended December 7, 2017, effective 1/1/2018; amended and effective 12/17/2020.Addition to Reporter's Notes, 2014 Amendment. The amendment to Rule 4-2(a)(9) requiring placement of volume numbers on briefs that contain multiple volumes is a housekeeping matter to assist in the orderly operation of the Clerk's office.