Several months ago, a lawyer shared with me a recent federal district court order in a discovery dispute. In it, the judge admonished the attorneys on both sides for uncivil and unprofessional behavior, using words like “misleading,” “histrionic,” and “uncalled-for”…
Continue Reading On Professionalism

Quite appropriately, Moore v. Harper, the upcoming Supreme Court case that tests the validity of the “independent state legislature” theory, has set off alarm bells about the future of democracy in the United States. The theory holds that state legislatures…
Continue Reading History Rewritten to Serve Selfish Ends – and Serve an Argument

Each week, the Appellate Advocacy Blog Weekly Roundup presents a few tidbits of news and Twitter posts from the past week concerning appellate advocacy. As always, if you see something during the week that you think we should be sure…
Continue Reading Appellate Advocacy Blog Weekly Roundup Friday, September 16, 2022

Reply briefs give litigants an opportunity to refute an adversary’s arguments and enhance the persuasiveness of their position. Below are several tips on how to maximize the effectiveness of a reply brief. 1. Begin with a concise and powerful introduction….
Continue Reading Tips for Writing a Persuasive Reply Brief

Last week, I responded to a noticeably short opening brief in an interlocutory appeal that sought to make the issue a simple one. That brief mustered little authority and asserted a purely legal question reflected in the relevant law’s text….
Continue Reading Presenting Issues as an Advocate

Are interested in transitioning from practice to academia, or are you an academic looking for a new school? The University of Arizona’s James E. Rogers College of Law is hiring in our nationally-ranked legal writing program. I joined the UArizona…
Continue Reading The University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law is Hiring!

Readers always care about the characters. Your client, the other players–we all need to imagine someone carrying out a case’s events so that we can follow along (and care). But many legal writers don’t take much time to consider how…
Continue Reading Harnessing the Power of Characters in Your Legal Writing

The best appellate advocates possess certain skills and abilities that often place them among the most distinguished attorneys in the legal profession. Below is a list of characteristics that distinguish the best appellate lawyers from the rest. 1. They are…
Continue Reading Characteristics of the Best Appellate Advocates

In the most recent ABA Journal, Chris Arledge discusses how well storytelling can assist in many aspects of trial practice. See Making Your Case: Storytelling Problems and Solutions, 104 ABA Journal 16-17 (Aug./Sept. 2022). Arledge’s interesting article on applying the…
Continue Reading Storytelling for Appellate Writing: A Few Tips on Using the Theory of the Case

Each week, the Appellate Advocacy Blog Weekly Roundup presents a few tidbits of news and Twitter posts from the past week concerning appellate advocacy. As always, if you see something during the week that you think we should be sure…
Continue Reading Appellate Advocacy Blog Weekly Roundup Friday August 26

Common wisdom holds that an advocate can lose a case at oral argument, but rarely prevails at the argument. By providing a wrong or weaker answer than expected, an otherwise allied judge might rethink support of a position. However, it…
Continue Reading Providing Fresh Perspective at Oral Argument

Each week, the Appellate Advocacy Blog Weekly Roundup presents a few tidbits of news and Twitter posts from the past week concerning appellate advocacy. As always, if you see something during the week that you think we should be sure…
Continue Reading Appellate Advocacy Blog Weekly Roundup Saturday, August 20, 2022

This week, I’ll note some elements of Justice Kavanaugh’s style from a 2019 case, Flowers v. Mississippi. 1., 2. Syllogistic opening and bottom line up front. As discussed in prior posts, this is (almost) a universal in good legal writing–a…
Continue Reading Writing like Justice Kavanaugh