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I didn't like how this project turned out. I'm trying again with a new project here.

Example

Source

# Heading

¶ In addition to the requirement of an "actionable wrong" independent
of the breach sued upon, punitive damages will only be awarded "where
the defendant's misconduct is so malicious, oppressive and high-handed
that it offends the court's sense of decency" [@hill, para. 196, Cory J]. Such
behaviour has included defamation [@hill], failing to provide medical
care [@robitaille], and exceptionally abusive behaviour by an
insurance company [@whiten]. Here's another citation to _Robitaille_
with a pinpoint (the first didn't have one) [@robitaille, para. 23].

¶ Since the primary vehicle of punishment is the criminal law,
punitive damages should be scarcely used [@whiten, para. 69]. It is
also important to underline that there cannot be joint and several
responsibility for punitive damages because they arise from the
misconduct of the particular defendant against whom they are awarded.

[@hill, para. 195]

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Another example

What this does

A lot of errors can creep in when you try to manually lay out citations, insert pinpoints, manage back-references, and create tables of authorities.

For example, in the sample factum, I found a reference that wasn't included in the table of authorities, inconsistent use of hyphens, en-dashes, and em-dashes, inconsistent citation layout, and typos in back-references.

Fortunately, this can all be automated. LaTex and BibTex have done this for decades for more standard citation formats. And, those solutions are certainly adequate for law journal articles with citations presented in standard footnotes. But, I haven't found something adequate for writing a factum in plain text that can then be converted to a nicely typeset PDF that matches the formatting requirements of UBC or the BC Court of Appeals.

I want to write in as close to plain text as possible, and I don't want to think about formatting or citation layout while I'm writing. These are some tools that I'm trying to use to get me there.

I've tried to adhere to the guidance and examples listed here, in roughly the priority listed. That is, if there is any conflicting guidance, I follow requirements of the higher-listed guide, but will look to lower-listed guides when a higher-listed guide leaves something ambiguous.

  1. http://www.allard.ubc.ca/sites/www.allard.ubc.ca/files/uploads/moots/first-year-moot-court-rules-2018.pdf
  2. http://www.allard.ubc.ca/sites/www.allard.ubc.ca/files/uploads/first%20year/factum_citation_guide.pdf
  3. http://guides.library.ubc.ca/legalcitation
  4. http://www.bclaws.ca/Recon/document/ID/freeside/297_2001a
  5. https://www.courts.gov.bc.ca/Court_of_Appeal/practice_and_procedure/Forms/Checklist_Court_of_Appeal_Factums.pdf
  6. https://store.thomsonreuters.ca/product-detail/canadian-guide-to-uniform-legal-citation-9th-edition-manuel-canadien-de-la-reference-juridique-9e-edition-mcgill-guide-hc-print/
  7. https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/home.html
  8. http://www.allard.ubc.ca/sites/www.allard.ubc.ca/files/uploads/moots/sample_appellants_factum_0.pdf
  9. http://www.allard.ubc.ca/sites/www.allard.ubc.ca/files/uploads/moots/sample_respondents_factum_0.pdf

Technical details

Dependencies include: LaTex (texlive), Pandoc, Python 3, probably more.

This is a work in progress. I'll be adding citation types as I need them. Right now, it only works for legal cases, legislation, and books. My python pre-processor for per-paragraph notes is a quick hack. I want that to be a proper Pandoc filter and I want to re-write it in Haskell or Racket.

When writing markdown for this style, you need to use paragraph markings (¶, or ◊). This is the only way the pre-processor can know where to insert the per-paragraph notes. "Paragraphs" don't necessarily end when there's a double linebreak. You may be making a quotation or some text from a statute, but that isn't the end of the "paragraph" for the purposes of the factum's structure or for inserting citations.

  ./paranotes-filter.py sample-factum-1.md sample-bibliography-1.yaml allard-factum.csl \
  | pandoc --bibliography sample-bibliography-1.yaml --csl allard-factum.csl --template=factum.latex -o sample-factum-1.pdf

Or, with a table-of-contents:

  ./paranotes-filter.py sample-factum-2.md sample-bibliography-2.yaml allard-factum.csl \
  | pandoc --bibliography sample-bibliography-2.yaml --csl allard-factum.csl --template=factum.latex --toc -o sample-factum-2.pdf