One of the first tests of a discriminating advocate is to select the question, or questions, that he will present orally. Legal contentions, like currency, depreciate through over-issue. The mind of an appellate judge is habitually receptive to the suggestion that a lower court committed an error. But receptiveness declines as the number of assigned errors increases. Multiplicity hints at lack of confidence in any one. Experience on the bench convinces me that multiplying assignments of error will dilute and weaken a good case and will not save a bad one.
Justice Robert Jackson, Advocacy Before the United States Supreme Court, 25 Temple L. Q. 115 (1951)