In recent years, the concept of implicit bias – the belief that all individuals harbor unconscious biases that affect their choices and actions – has been embraced by many law schools and the American Bar Association. In fact, the ABA…
Continue Reading Implicit Bias Challenged, If Not Debunked

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, January 27

The Supreme Court has recently offered strikingly similar answers to two seemingly disparate questions. The first concerns Article III standing to bring a case in federal court: What does it mean to show a “concrete and particularized injury in fact”…
Continue Reading Concrete Economics on the Supreme Court

“What is your best case?” That’s a question that many an appellate judge asks during oral argument. Sometimes, there is an obvious answer: Smith v. Jones holds that the very inaction of the defendant in this case constitutes a breach…
Continue Reading What is Your Best Case?

Happy 2023. I hope the new year is going well for all of you. As I began moving my students from objective office memos to the joy of appellate brief writing this month, I used a slide titled: “Read Everything.”…
Continue Reading “Read Everything” Is Good Advice at Any Stage of a Case or a Lawyer’s Career

Sure, if you had years to write your legal documents (like other types of writers do), your documents would all be great. But we legal writers don’t have years to write documents. We have just weeks. Or days. Or even…
Continue Reading Your Legal Writing Process

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, January 20, 2023

Oscar Wilde once said that imitation “is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness.” Quite the backhanded compliment to the imitator. Or maybe he was trying to comfort those who had to endure cheap imitations of…
Continue Reading Imitation as progress–learning to write

Happy New Year from the Appellate Advocacy Blog team. We are in the process of updating our blog team and schedule, so please be patient as we work those details out. If you are interested in joining our blog team,…
Continue Reading Aristotle, Classical Rhetoric, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

One of the criticisms of law schools is that they do not adequately prepare students for law practice. In law school, students learn legal doctrines, acquire critical thinking, argumentation, and persuasive writing skills, master IRAC/CRAC, and participate in clinics –…
Continue Reading What Law Students Should Know About Law Practice

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, January 13

As lawyers and appellate advocates, we trust that the rule of law will prevail – that there will be consequences for breaching contracts, for negligence that injures another person, and for violating constitutionally guaranteed rights. We trust that judges will…
Continue Reading Who Serves on the Bench Matters

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, January 6, 2023