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Young Lawyers

Making the Most of Your Appellate Clerkship

You have graduated law school and have secured an appellate clerkship. Congratulations! Now what? It’s up to you. You will learn about the law, benefit from your judge’s mentorship, and become a better lawyer – that is virtually unavoidable. This article offers a few tips to help reduce the learning curve and make your clerkship even more rewarding.

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Writing a Winning Legal Argument: What To Do and What Not To Do

Writing a winning legal argument can often be the most important single element in a case. In this era of fewer and fewer jury trials, the prevalence of summary judgment, and endgame strategies more often focusing on appellate courts, a lawyer’s skill in writing a winning legal argument – whether before a trial judge or on appeal – may well dictate whether the client wins or loses. That is not to say that all of the other facets of litigation, including discovery, oral argument, trial presentation, etc., are unimportant, but in some cases writing a winning legal argument may be the most crucial. Presented at the 2007 Section Annual Conference.

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The Appellate Practice Associate’s Survival Guide: Tips for Success in a Law Firm Appellate Practice

This guide includes suggestions and tips for success as an associate or junior lawyer in a firm appellate practice. While these tips are not meant to be exhaustive, if you following them, you will put yourself in position to do very will in a firm appellate practice.

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Ten Steps For Becoming an Appellate Lawyer

So you want to become an appellate lawyer. (Are you crazy? Have you sought professional help?) In all events, appellate work can be both very interesting and rewarding. There is nothing quite like the thrill of having answered a particularly aggressive appellate judge’s question in a way that all in the courtroom know has fully extinghished the judge’s concern (or at least that judge’s momentum in the line of questioning.) However, only a relatively small number of lawyers regularly do a significant amount of appellate work. There is really no great mystery about how you can put yourself in position to do appellate work. But it will take some effort.

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So You’re Doing a California Appeal? A Primer for Out-of-State Lawyers

One of the authors of this article used to practice law in New York. He recalls vividly the mood that used to come over his New York colleagues when faced with the prospect of any form of litigation in California. It was as though they were about to be plunged into the heart of darkness. Another analogy might be to a group of world-weary expatriates nursing their gin-and-tonics at an embassy function in some distant land while grousing about the locals’ crazy customs. Our message to those contemplating their first California appeal is: Relax. Yes, it is somewhat different, and you need to understand and appreciate the differences. But you can do it. This article will be a good first step.

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Can You or Can’t You: Review of Partial Judgments Under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 54(B)

Appellate practitioners need no refresher on the omnipresent “one-final-judgment” rule—which provides that a judgment is appealable only when it “ends the litigation on the merits and leaves nothing for the court to do but execute the judgment.”  Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 54(b), however, departs from the norm of one appeal per case by allowing a district court to enter a final judgment when it has (1) resolved all claims concerning a single party in multi-party litigation, or (2) has wrapped up a single claim with respect to all parties.  Perhaps not surprisingly, determining what constitutes a single claim for purposes of Rule 54(b) finality “has occasioned a good deal of subtle jurisprudence.”  Put more colorfully, the essence of a claim “eludes the grasp like quicksilver.”

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