UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT 333 Constitution Ave., N.W. Washington, D.C. 20001-2866 February 26, 1997 To: Appellate Court and Circuit Administration Division ATTN: ABA Citation Resolution From: Stephen F. Williams PARAGRAPH NUMBERING AND OTHER DEVICES FOR FACILITATING PIN CITES I strongly oppose adoption of a practice of numbering paragraphs in judicial opinions. Few changes would more aptly symbolize and advance the bureaucratization of the federal judiciary. The style belongs to the civil law tradition and to decisions of the Federal Communications commission, not to the common law. The purpose of making possible pin citations in which no private sector company has a copyright can be as well achieved by allowing or requiring citation to pages of the slip opinions, identified by *s. (That may require insertion of some computer symbol in the computerized version of the slip opinion, but I don't see why that should be a difficulty.) SGU