In the

United States Court of Appeals 

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ 

No. 23-2495 

ASYMADESIGN, LLC, 

Plaintiff-Appellant, 

v.

CBL & ASSOCIATES MANAGEMENT, INC., 

Defendant-Appellee. 

____________________ 

Appeal from the United States District Court for the

Northern District of Illinois, Western Division.

No. 3:21-cv-50374 — Iain D. Johnston, Judge. 

____________________ 

ARGUED MAY 29, 2024 — DECIDED JUNE 3, 2024 

____________________ 

Before EASTERBROOK, BRENNAN, and SCUDDER, Circuit 

Judges. 

EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge. AsymaDesign, LLC, entered 

into a lease with CBL that allowed AsymaDesign to operate a 

virtual-reality ride in a shopping mall. When people complained about noises from the ride, CBL moved it to a different location in the mall, as the lease permiPed. The ride was 

not profitable in the new location. AsymaDesign stopped 
2 No. 23-2495 

paying rent, was evicted, and on December 8, 2017, dissolved 

under the Illinois Limited Liability Company Act. 

Almost four years later George Asimah, the former LLC’s 

owner, filed this suit under 42 U.S.C. §1981 and state contract 

law. He contended that CBL discriminated on account of race 

(Asimah describes himself as African-American) when not allowing the LLC extra time to pay its rent. The district court 

dismissed the suit because Asimah was not the real party in 

interest: AsymaDesign, not Asimah personally, held the lease. 

2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 169145 (N.D. Ill. Sept. 20, 2022). Asimah 

might have contended that on its dissolution AsymaDesign 

distributed to its former member (Asimah himself) the right 

to bring this suit, but he did not make such an argument. 

An amended complaint named AsymaDesign as an additional plaintiff. The district court dismissed the amended 

complaint as untimely because, although Illinois law allows a 

dissolved LLC a “reasonable time” to wind up its business, 

805 ILCS 180/35-4(c), AsymaDesign had not even begun to litigate until almost five years after its dissolution, exceeding the 

benchmark allowed by Illinois law. 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 97640 

(N.D. Ill. June 5, 2023), relying on Sienna Court Condominium 

Association v. Champion Aluminum Corp., 2017 IL App (1st) 

143364 ¶¶ 105–111, reversed in part on other grounds, 2018 IL

122022. 

AsymaDesign then filed a notice of appeal. It is the sole 

named appellant, see Fed. R. App. 3(c)(1)(A), a limitation that 

denies Asimah any chance to make a belated argument that 

AsymaDesign distributed the chose in action to him. 

The notice of appeal is signed only by George Asimah. He 

is not a lawyer and therefore cannot represent AsymaDesign 
No. 23-2495 3 

or anyone other than himself. See, e.g., United States v. Hagerman, 545 F.3d 579 (7th Cir. 2008); Philos Technologies, Inc. v. 

Philos & D, Inc., 645 F.3d 851, 857–58 (7th Cir. 2011); Scandia 

Down Corp. v. Euroquilt, Inc., 772 F.2d 1423, 1427 (7th Cir. 

1985). The need for an aPorney to sign on behalf of someone 

else appears in Fed. R. Civ. P. 11(a) as well as our case law: 

“Every pleading, wriPen motion, and other paper must be 

signed by at least one aPorney of record in the aPorney’s 

name—or by a party personally if the party is unrepresented.” (A notice of appeal is filed in the district court, so 

Rule 11(a) applies.) 

After CBL objected in its brief to the lack of an aPorney’s 

signature on the notice of appeal, AsymaDesign did not file a 

reply brief. At oral argument its lawyer asserted that, under 

Illinois corporate law, any person may represent a corporation. This assertion has multiple problems: first, an LLC is not 

a corporation (separate statutes apply to LLCs and corporations); second, the statutory reference does not appear to supersede the norm that a member of the bar is needed to represent a corporation in court; third, and dispositive, federal 

rules govern the procedure for litigation in federal court. See, 

e.g., Shady Grove Orthopedic Associates, P.A. v. Allstate Insurance 

Co., 559 U.S. 393 (2010); Gasperini v. Center for Humanities, Inc., 

518 U.S. 415 (1996); Mayer v. Gary Partners & Co., 29 F.3d 330 

(7th Cir. 1994). The federal rule is clear: only a member of the 

court’s bar (or a lawyer admiPed pro hac vice) can represent 

another person or entity in litigation. 

Rule 3(a)(2) specifies that defects in the notice of appeal, 

other than filing within the time allowed by statute, do not 

affect appellate jurisdiction. Compare Bowles v. Russell, 551 

U.S. 205 (2007) (untimely notice of appeal does not vest 
4 No. 23-2495 

jurisdiction in a court of appeals), with Hamer v. Neighborhood 

Housing Services of Chicago, 583 U.S. 17 (2017) (failure to comply with the Federal Rules is not a jurisdictional problem). We 

held in 1756 W. Lake St. LLC v. American Chartered Bank, 787 

F.3d 383, 385 (7th Cir. 2015), that a non-lawyer’s signature on 

an organization’s notice of appeal does not negate appellate 

jurisdiction. 

Still, even non-jurisdictional rules must be enforced when 

the beneficiary stands on its rights. The Supreme Court calls 

these requirements “claims-processing rules.” The need for 

bar membership to act as another person’s agent in court is a 

claims-processing rule. CBL asserts the benefit of this rule, 

and AsymaDesign has not contended that it waited too long 

to do so. Cf. Hamer v. Neighborhood Housing Services of Chicago, 

897 F.3d 835 (7th Cir. 2018) (non-jurisdictional rules that affect 

the validity of an appeal normally must be raised in the parties’ docketing statements). AsymaDesign’s sole argument 

has been that anyone may represent an Illinois corporation in 

federal court. That argument is misguided, so the appeal must 

be dismissed. 

We are publishing this opinion not just to make these obvious points but also to urge all lawyers to read and follow 

this circuit’s Practitioner’s Handbook for Appeals (2020 ed.), 

which is available on the court’s web site at 

hPps://www.ca7.uscourts.gov/rules-procedures/Handbook.pdf. The Handbook discusses the uses of reply briefs and 

docketing statements, subjects on which AsymaDesign’s lawyer may need a refresher. And, more important for the sore 

eyes of judges who must read copious legal materials, the 

Handbook (at 170–77) contains some important advice about 

typography. 
No. 23-2495 5 

Of the many typographic suggestions in the Handbook, the 

one most important to readers is that lawyers choose typefaces (often called fonts) suited for use in books and other 

long-form presentations. Page 174 offers this advice: 

• Both the Supreme Court and the Solicitor General 

use Century. Professional typographers set books 

in New Baskerville, Book Antiqua, Calisto, Century, Century Schoolbook, Bookman Old Style 

and many other proportionally spaced serif faces. 

Any face with the word “book” in its name is 

likely to be good for legal work. Baskerville, 

Bembo, Caslon, Deepdene, Galliard, Jenson, Minion, Palatino, Pontifex, Stone Serif, Trump 

Mediäval, and Utopia are among other faces designed for use in books and thus suitable for brieflength presentations. 

• Use the most legible face available to you. Experiment with several, then choose the one you find 

easiest to read. Type with a larger “x-height” (that 

is, in which the letter x is taller in relation to a capital letter) tends to be more legible. For this reason, faces in the Bookman and Century families 

are preferable to faces in the Garamond and 

Times families. You also should shun type designed for display. Bodoni and other faces with 

exaggerated stroke widths are effective in headlines but hard to read in long passages. 

Jason R. Epstein, who represents AsymaDesign, did not heed 

this advice. His brief is set in Bernhard Modern, a display face 

suited to movie posters and used in the title sequence of the

Twilight Zone TV show. Wikipedia explains: “A somewhat 
6 No. 23-2495 

decorative text typeface, it is distinct for its low x-height, elongated ascenders, and relatively short descenders giving it an 

appearance of height without requiring excessive leading. 

Serifs are wide and splayed.” hPps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernhard_Modern. Those are not characteristics 

that conduce to easy reading of long passages. 

Most of this opinion is in the Seventh Circuit’s normal type: 12-point Palatino Linotype. We set this paragraph and the next in 16-point Bernhard Modern to 

give a sense of what AsymaDesign’s brief looks like—

and of how much harder it is to read a display face than 

a typeface designed for books or legal briefs. (A passage of 

12-point Bernhard Modern, such as this sentence, requires a magnifying 

glass because the x-height is so low.)

Matthew Butterick, a type designer turned appellate 

lawyer, offers advice similar to that in our Handbook. 

See Matthew Butterick, Typography for Lawyers (2d ed. 

2018), or his web site of the same name. He provides a 

different (though overlapping) list of typefaces good for 

use in legal briefs. If you don’t believe our Handbook, 

believe Butterick. His book and web site include many 

examples of what to emulate—and what to avoid.

Judges are long-term consumers of lengthy texts. To present an argument to such people, counsel must make the 

words easy to read and remember. The fonts recommended 

in our Handbook and Typography for Lawyers promote the goals 

of reading, understanding, and remembering. Display faces 
No. 23-2495 7 

such as Bodoni or Bernhard Modern wear out judicial eyes 

after just a few pages and make understanding harder. 

We hope that Bernhard Modern has made its last appearance in an appellate brief. 

The appeal is dismissed.