Every lawyer writing an appeal brief, either for the appellant or appellee, knows an appeal is easier to win if you have a favorable standard of judicial review.  Although there are various standards, an appellant would want the lower court ruling to be reviewed de novo and the appellee would prefer the ruling be reviewed under the abuse of discretion standard.  However, many lawyers write the standard of review section of their brief and then seem to forget that the standard exists, or they may even write that section as they near completion of the brief without it being an integral part of their argument. To the contrary, the applicable standard of review(s) must be identified at the beginning, and focused on as the…