Tips for Persuasive Legal Writing | Luther Munford | Texas Appellate Law Podcast
Legal Writing for the New Generation | Chad Baruch | Texas Appellate Law Podcast
Why Lawyers Should Care About Typography | Matthew Butterick | Texas Appellate Law Podcast
Leveraging Technology to Improve Legal Writing | Ross Guberman | Texas Appellate Law Podcast
Psycholinguistics and Legal Writing | Judge Robert Bacharach | Texas Appellate Law Podcast
Using AI to Improve the Briefing Process | Jacqueline Schafer | Texas Appellate Law Podcast
Helping the Court Decide Your Case | Justice April Farris | Texas Appellate Law Podcast
It’s not every day that the Court of Appeals spends almost 12 pages talking about the appellate rules, including why rules compliance is so important. But that’s exactly what the Court of Appeals did in Harney v. Harney. ...more
On August 8, 2024, the CFPB filed its Appellant Brief with the Fifth Circuit, appealing the September 2023 decision by the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of Texas that vacated the March 2022 changes to the...more
Join us in fabulous Las Vegas for a program that will benefit all attorneys involved in appeals. Sessions will include discussions on building an appellate practice, practical advice for presenting a persuasive appellate...more
Lawyers are professional writers, and the ability to write persuasively is more important than ever. In this episode, Luther Munford, an appellate expert and former law professor, joins Todd Smith and Jody Sanders for an...more
We previously blogged on the lawsuit filed by the National Small Business Association (“NSBA”) and one of its individual members, which sought to challenge the constitutionality of the Corporate Transparency Act (“CTA”). Most...more
There has been a great deal of controversy about the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in all facets of life and now the legal field. My own firm has certain very restrictive rules about lawyers using AI, especially when...more
Stories about attorneys and litigants using artificial intelligence (AI) to generate court documents have started popping up all over the country with increasingly negative results. In one of the most recent tales, a pro...more
You might think 50 pages or 12,300 words, in the Virginia Court of Appeals, or 30 pages or 13,000 words, in the federal courts of appeals, would be more than enough space for a lawyer to get out an argument. If you do, you’re...more
It’s no secret that judges in North Carolina’s state and federal appellate courts don’t reach for printed briefs much anymore (the Chief Judge of the Fourth Circuit, Albert Diaz, has said that he and his colleagues routinely...more
It is crucial for an appellant drafting an initial brief to adequately identify and describe all claims and issues the appellant intends to raise for appellate review. Apart from the obvious advantage of providing as much...more
Thirty years ago, Justice Scalia famously described the Supreme Court’s Lemon test as “some ghoul in a late-night horror movie that repeatedly sits up in its grave and shuffles abroad, after being repeatedly killed and...more
We previously posted on Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 28(i), which is the rule governing the adoption of part or all of another’s brief. We initially looked at decisions addressing the burden on a party to...more
It is basic, but critical, to persuade the court that the result you seek is the right result. The court has to feel good about ruling in favor of your client. As Judge Gurfein of the Second Circuit aptly stated, “It is still...more
If you need to appeal the outcome of your federal criminal case, you have lots of factors to consider. While there are a variety of grounds for pursuing appeals, not all grounds are available in all cases; and, even if you...more
The Court of Appeals’ latest batch of opinions includes several reminders about the importance of proving that appellate jurisdiction is proper in an appellant’s opening brief. Not in a conclusory fashion. Not in the...more
When you hear about an appellate decision, what comes to mind? Typically, I think of a formal “opinion”—at least when the appeal has been briefed on the merits. And historically, I have thought of an “order” as a short...more
Any Texas attorney who has been to a legal writing CLE knows Chad Baruch of Johnston Tobey Baruch. Chad has taught countless attorneys throughout the United States how to provide engaging and analytical briefing in both trial...more
On August 5, 2022, the Supreme Court of New Jersey released amendments to the Court Rules governing practice in New Jersey’s state courts, which will take effect on September 1, 2022. We highlight two of the main...more
We previously wrote about the requirements for joining in a co-party’s brief or motion to avoid waiver issues. Since our original post, federal appellate courts have continued to hold that a party who seeks to adopt the...more
Attorneys spend a lot of time choosing the right words to use in briefs and motions. But they often neglect thinking about how their words actually look on the page. Layout and typography can impact how legal work product is...more
Whether a court order is appealable is often the first issue analyzed by appellate attorneys. An interlocutory order is an order issued by a court while a case is pending. These orders are not a final disposition of the case,...more
On September 17, 2021, a panel of the Illinois Appellate Court for the First District issued a significant decision on the question of which statute of limitations apply to claims under the Illinois Biometric Information...more
Appellate practice can be challenging - In complicated cases, it's made all the more challenging by the word limits often imposed by the pertinent rules of procedure. For example, in the North Carolina Court of Appeals,...more
Two months ago, on March 16, the D.C. Circuit issued a notice on “Preferred Typefaces for Briefs,” in which the court explicitly “discourage[d] the use of Garamond” because it “appears smaller” and is less “legible” than...more
Most legal writers know about Ross Guberman, author and founder of Legal Writing Pro. Ross was one of the first legal writing instructors to work with law firms and practitioners across the country. Ross also developed...more