10 Tuesday Jan 2017
Posted in 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, Appellate Law, Appellate Writing, Bad Legal Writing, Brief Writing, Legal Writing
≈ Comments Off on How Long Is Too Long For An Appellate Brief?
Posner criticizes ‘verbosity’ in appeals briefs in decision upholding closed voir dire, by Debra Cassens Weiss, Appellate Practice, ABA Journal.com (with hat tip to William P. Statsky)
Judge Richard Posner is a well-known 7th Circuit jurist, legal writing scholar, and prolific author. Knowing this, it is puzzling why the appellate briefs for both sides were over 200 pages each. Yes, Judge Posner had something to say about it. -CCE
22 Saturday Aug 2015
Posted in Appellate Law, Appellate Writing, Brief Writing, Editing, Grammar, Legal Analysis, Legal Argument, Legal Writing, Persuasive Writing, Readability, United States Supreme Court
≈ Comments Off on Supreme Court Writing Analysis – Whose Briefs Win and Why.
Tags
Appellate Briefs, Legal Analysis, Legal Writing, Persuasive Legal Writing, Plain English, U.S. Supreme Court
Who Wins in the Supreme Court? An Examination of Attorney and Law Firm Influence, by Alan Feldman, University of Southern California, Political Science, SSRN.com (Date posted: August 18, 2015 ; Last revised: August 21, 2015)
This paper is a detailed analysis of what type of legal writing and briefs from 1946 through 2013 have been the most influential with the United States Supreme Court and the lawyers who write them. Interestingly, lawyers who write short sentences in the active voice and who use fewer words than the majority of brief writers are the most successful. It is a fascinating read, and strongly recommended. -CCE
20 Saturday Jun 2015
Posted in Appellate Law, Appellate Writing, Brief Writing, Citations, Citations to the Record, Court Rules, Courts, Legal Writing, Local Rules, Table of Authorities
≈ Comments Off on An Expert’s Guide To Formatting An Appellate Brief.
Tags
Above the Law, Appellate Briefs, Appellate Record, Brief Formatting, Court Rules, Deborah Savadra, Legal Office Guru, Legal Writing
(Deborah Savadra is editor and chief blogger at Legal Office Guru, which offers The WordPerfect Lover’s Guide to Word as well as Microsoft Office video tutorials. You can follow her on Twitter at @legalofficeguru.)
https://lawyerist.com/70334/format-appellate-brief-microsoft-word/
Appellate briefs are not a project for beginners. And, regardless of what you read in this tutorial, you must follow your appellate court rules to the letter.
When your court’s rules tell you that it wants citations done a certain way, it mean exactly that. If the court’s rules say a brief must not go over a certain number of pages, do not even think about “fudging” the rules by changing the font, page size, or line spacing.
You see, all courts, not just appellate ones, write local rules for a reason. Whatever “trick” you may try to skirt around those rules, that court has already seen it and knows it when it sees it again. Courts take their local rules seriously, and so should you.
There are many posts and articles posted on my blog about the strategy and nuances of writing appellate briefs, as well as many excellent books on the subject. This tutorial will help you with the nuts and bolts of writing the bare bones, which is always useful regardless of your writing proficiency.
I also highly recommend Ms. Deborah Savadra’s blog, Legal Office Guru. She does an excellent job. -CCE
04 Friday Jul 2014
Posted in Appellate Law, Appellate Writing, Brief Writing, Legal Analysis, Legal Argument, Legal Writing
≈ Comments Off on Some Of The Common Mistakes Made In Appeals.
Tags
Appellate Briefs, Appellate Law, Appellate Procedure, Brief Writing, Findlaw.com, Legal Argument, Scott P. Stolley, Thompson & Knight LLP
Appeal in Error: Common Mistakes Made in Appeals, by Scott P. Stolley of Thompson & Knight LLP, Findlaw.com
Some lawyers prefer trial litigation. Some prefer appellate law. For those who enjoy litigation, need to appeal, but don’t want to do it themselves, hire an appellate lawyer. There are appellate specialists out there who know the in’s and out’s of appellate procedure.
Lawyers who specialize in appellate law often have experience working for the justices or former justices of that court. It gives them an unique insight into the personalities and proclivities of that court. Sometimes that is a useful thing. – CCE
After a trial, the losing party often has too much at stake, emotionally or financially, to let the verdict stand unchallenged. Appeal is the next option, but many litigants do not fully understand how different an appeal is from a trial. They may also underestimate the differences between trial lawyers and appellate lawyers. These differences may be overlooked when inexperienced litigants launch an appeal. The following is a discussion of common mistakes that such litigants regularly make. . . .
06 Sunday Apr 2014
Posted in 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, Appellate Judges, Appellate Law, Bad Legal Writing, Brief Writing, Citations, Judges, Legal Analysis, Legal Argument, Legal Writing, Proofreading, Texas Supreme Court
≈ Comments Off on Appellate Judges Give Advice On Winning An Appeal.
Tags
Appellate Briefs, Appellate Judges, Appellate Law, Chad M. Ruback, Dallas Bar Association Judiciary Committee, Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, Legal Analysis, Legal Writing, Texas, Texas Supreme Court
Appellate Judges Tell Dallas Lawyers How to Handle an Appeal, By Chad M. Ruback, Appellate Lawyer
The Dallas Bar Association Judiciary Committee recently hosted a panel discussion with three prominent appellate judges. Catharina Haynes is the only federal appellate judge in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. After years of sitting as a Dallas state trial court judge, she was appointed to sit on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Debra Lehrmann is the only Texas Supreme Court justice from Fort Worth. Along with Chief Justice Nathan Hecht, she is one of only two Texas Supreme Court justices who began judicial service in North Texas. After a distinguished career in a large Dallas law firm, Elizabeth Lang-Miers serves as a justice on the Fifth District Court of Appeals, which reviews the cases from Texas state trial courts in Dallas County and five other counties.
The three panelists offered a number of helpful tips for lawyers practicing before appellate courts. . . .
24 Monday Feb 2014
Posted in Appellate Judges, Appellate Law, Brief Writing, Judges, Legal Argument, Legal Writing
Tags
Appeal, Appellate Briefs, Appellate court, Appellate Law, Brief Writing, Legal Argument, Reply Brief
Yes, Filing an Appellant’s Reply Brief Really is Necessary, by Mike Skotnicki, Briefly Writing Blog
http://brieflywriting.com/2014/02/03/yes-filing-an-appellants-reply-brief-really-is-necessary/
In both my prior practice of appellate law in a fairly large firm and now in my work as a freelance appellate attorney, I’ve been asked by lawyers I was working with whether it was really necessary to file an Appellant’s Reply Brief. My short answer is, ‘Only if you want to win.’
16 Sunday Feb 2014
Posted in 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, Appellate Law, Bad Legal Writing, Brief Writing, Case Law, Citations, Citations to the Record, Legal Analysis, Legal Writing, Mandatory Law, Primary Law, Proofreading, Research, Statement of Facts, Texas Supreme Court
≈ Comments Off on Good Advice On How to Avoid Embarrassing Mistakes In An Appeal.
Tags
Appellate Briefs, Appellate Law, Appellate Lawyer, Chad M. Ruback, Citations, Citations to the Record, Hyperbole, Justice Debra Lehrmann, Legal Writing, Proofreading, Statement of Facts, Texas Supreme Court
Common Mistakes Seen in Appellate Petitions and Briefs, by Chad M. Ruback, Appellate Lawyer
http://news.appeal.pro/appeals-to-texas-supreme-court/appellate-petitions-and-briefs/
Mr. Ruback served as a briefing attorney to the Fort Worth Court of Appeals. Here he shares the common mistakes that are normally seen in appellate writing. Because an appellate court never questions witnesses or hears evidence, the written documents submitted by the parties are all it has upon which to base its ruling. Sloppy and lengthy garbled arguments simply will not do. Mr. Ruback’s comments are worth noting.
I would like to add to Mr. Ruback’s list – neglecting to verify the accuracy of the appellate record while it remains in the jurisdiction of the trial court. It is a simple exercise to compare the record compiled by the trial court clerk using the Designation of Record and Counter-Designation of Record to make sure that the record is accurate.
This may seem a waste of time until the appellate record includes a deposition that was never admitted into evidence or a crucial piece of evidence is overlooked by the court clerk who assembled record for the appeal. No one is perfect; mistakes can happen.
Too often, counsel ignore this simple step. Personally, I would make sure the person you send to check the record put the trial exhibits together and/or was part of the trial team. Or to put it another way – how do you explain to a client that you couldl have avoided the appeal’s fatal flaw if you had checked the record before it was sent up on appeal? -CCE
08 Saturday Feb 2014
Posted in Brief Writing, Fonts, Judges, Legal Writing
≈ Comments Off on Forget Times New Roman! Courts Prefer More Readable, Professional Fonts.
Legal Writing: Font Matters, by Jason Steed, Legal Solutions Blog
I thought by now it was becoming common knowledge that lawyers should avoid using Times New Roman as the font for their legal documents. But I recently had a conversation with an experienced lawyer about font choices in appellate briefs, and this experienced lawyer was trying to tell me that font doesn’t matter. “Just leave it on Times New Roman,” the experienced lawyer said. “That’s what judges are used to; it’s what they expect. There’s no reason to shake it up.” And maybe this is true. Maybe judges, after seeing thousands of court filings, simply get “used to” and “expect” these briefs to look a certain way.
But that doesn’t mean that that’s how judges want things to be. In fact, there’s evidence to the contrary. . . .
