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
Trying to win cases is hard enough, but one thing to think about is that a case may not end at trial. There may be an appeal. And when there is an appeal, what happened at trial will be critical....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
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
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
We decided to start the new year off with a little practice pointer. We noticed that the Court rejected a brief today (not ours) for failing to comply with several rules. One basis for the rejection is a rule that often is...more
As in the Michigan state court system, most of your time in a federal civil case will be spent on discovery, and most of your interaction with the court will be through motion practice. Different courts have different rules...more
The Ninth Circuit recently questioned several appellate lawyers about misleading statements in their briefs, including quotes from cases with ellipses, thereby omitting the very language that showed the quote and case were...more
You are on your feet at the podium and you have told the appellate panel who you are and whom you represent. What is the first substantive thing you should now tell the court (always assuming you get that opportunity before...more
The Appellate Court: An exciting forum of oral advocacy; a check on the process and the decisions of our trial courts; a second chance for parties to make their case; and a place where novel and important legal principles...more
Appeals happen. Maybe you won in the trial court and the other side wants to challenge, or maybe you lost (but that must have been a mistake, right?). Either way, you need to preserve your arguments and prepare for an appeal...more
Appellate advocates should write briefs that make life easier for law clerks and judges. That will increase their chances of prevailing on appeal. With that in mind, we recently conducted an informal survey of our firm’s...more
For writers of any legal briefs, there is hardly anything more frustrating than finally finding a case on point, in our jurisdiction, with a “correct” holding to support our argument, but unpublished. More than 85% of the...more
Clients should not be cheerleaders when they review drafts of appellate briefs. They should take steps to make the brief more effective from the judges’ viewpoint. Asking the following questions as they review their lawyers’...more
Perhaps I’m revealing too much about my abilities in a prior life to balance academic and social priorities, but does anyone else remember the “not less than X pages” page requirements for high-school and college term papers...more
Though Statements of Jurisdiction may seem like a simple part of an appellate brief, parties often make mistakes in drafting jurisdictional statements. In fact, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit recently...more
The First Circuit Court of Appeals recently released its proposed amendments to Local Rule 25.0, governing the use of electronic document filing (“e-filing”). While Many of the proposed amendments incorporate familiar aspects...more
On December 1, 2016, a set of rule amendments to the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure became effective. The amended rules and details of the amendments can be found on the Eighth Circuit’s webpage, available at...more
In polite society, it is rude not to introduce yourself, but if you are writing a brief to a Florida appellate court, the issue is complicated. The rule describing the required content of a brief does not describe an...more
Decisions across the U.S. identify, as one example of “bad appellate advocacy,” presenting too many issues on appeal. The Seventh Circuit applied those words to a brief that presented “12 issues for review—many with...more