The reply brief must be (relatively) short, (relatively) punchy, and selective.
To be effective, the reply brief must identify from the start one or more overall themes in the argument or arguments with the best chance of winning and explain to the court where the appellee’s brief, which it just read, went fundamentally astray.
The function of a reply brief is to respond to an adversary’s arguments. The court can look back to your opening brief as a reminder of the overall structure of your argument and to answer nagging questions. It is therefore usually unnecessary to retrace all the steps of your logic in the reply brief, and it is far more acceptable in a reply than in an opening brief to concentrate on sharply focused (but polite) debate.
