Committees

CAL encourages its members to become involved and bring to the attention of these Committees their ideas and concerns so that the objectives and interests of all members can be heard, understood and incorporated into CAL proposals, projects and initiatives.

Aside from the benefits that you receive as a member of the ABA, the Judicial Division and the AJC, as a CAL member, you will have the opportunity to serve on the Council's many Committees which provide members a lively and open forum for analysis, debate and education. Committees also allow you to discuss common and diverse interests and goals and to network with appellate attorneys from around the nation.

Long Range Planning

The scope of the Long Range Planning Committee is to determine goals for CAL (as the only appellate bench/bar group in the nation), assess the needs of our membership and plan ways to meet those goals and increase membership.

Membership Committee

The focus of the Membership Committee is to implement plans and ideas to increase CAL's membership. In its efforts to increase membership, the Membership Committee should make every effort to develop a diverse membership base composed of lawyers of different races, sexes and ethnic backgrounds, and in addition, lawyers who practice in different geographic areas and in both private and public practice. The Committee, with the assistance of the Publications Committee, will create and maintain a member directory.

The committee will also strive to ensure that CAL members receive every benefit to which they are entitled. Similarly, the committee will attempt to monitor whether CAL is delivering the services its members desire. The committee will encourage members to become involved with committee work so that they derive the special benefits that come with active participation in the Council.

Pro Bono Committee

The scope of the Pro Bono Committee is to support efforts by individual lawyers, bar associations, and court personnel to initiate, develop, and improve pro se and/or pro bono programs in the state and federal appellate courts around the nation. To date, we have served as a resource and clearinghouse of information regarding these types of programs. We eventually hope to develop model guidelines, procedures, and forms for use by courts and bar groups to implement and operate pro se and pro bono programs.

Programs Committee

The Programs Committee organizes meetings and educational programs for the Council. Currently those include an annual educational program (planned and held in conjunction with the ABA's Appellate Judges Conference and the Appellate Judges Education Institute); in some years, a separate annual business meeting with a legal education component; a teleconference; and a group swearing-in before the United States Supreme Court solely for Council members. Members of the committee identify and arrange for speakers, panels, and presentations, with an emphasis on events that permit appellate attorneys to interact directly with the judges who participate in the Conference and the Institute.

Publications Committee

The plan for this year is to publish the newsletter and articles submitted by CAL members and judges, work with the website committee (chaired by Michael Gross) to improve CAL's site, and create an index of state appellate systems. The index will cover the basics, e.g., court hierarchy, whether review is automatic or at the court's discretion, percent of cases published/unpublished, whether unpublished cases are online and/or citable, whether judges are elected or appointed, and the precedent system within the state (i.e., are there districts? Do they set precedent for state or only for district?), and anything else along these lines that would be interesting or useful for someone unfamiliar with the system. This project, which is being headed by Harold Rauzi, is well under way.

Rules Committee

The Rules Committee's primary role has been to evaluate and comment on proposed amendments to the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure. It has reported to the Supreme Court's Advisory Committee on Appellate Rules regarding such proposals and it has also suggested additional amendments to the federal rules and to the federal Judicial Code.

Recently, the CAL Rules Committee has begun four additional projects which aim to improve appellate practice. The first project is the compilation of "The (Previously) Unwritten Rules of Appellate Practice." The second project seeks articles to be published in CAL's newsletter and on its web site. The third project is the development and publication of a series of relatively short articles which highlight the best practices of appellate courts which are peculiar to a particular court or not wide spread, but which should be considered and perhaps implemented by other appellate courts. The fourth project is the exploration of areas in which the state and federal rules of appellate procedure can be improved.

Website Subcommittee

The scope of the subcommittee's interest is improvement of the utility and design of the CAL web site through established ABA channels. We also have identified a need for increasing the likelihood that pertinent search engine inquires will result in links to the site. The redesign/restructuring project is on hold pending the replacement of the ABA programmer/designer who would be responsible for doing this work. It is my understanding that the ABA insists on having such work done in-house. An excellent search engine optimization specialist has offered to optimize the site for search engine recognition at no charge. He is a Florida intellectual property lawyer who is in the web site design and search engine optimization business with a clientel consisting primarily of law firms. He is not an appellate lawyer or a member of CAL. The payoff for him, apart from the opportunity to make a contribution to the profession, would be the chance to demonstrate his skill to a group of lawyers.