A “hinge” allows a door to swing left or right, and back again. In making a legal argument, I use the term “hinge point” to refer to a single issue upon which an appeal may be won, or lost. In appellate advocacy there are often many issues raised on appeal and they may often be decided independently of each other. However, a technique that may be made on appeal in certain limited instances is to focus the resolution of the appeal on a certain single question of law or question of fact. In other words, you roll the dice for the entire appeal on winning that one single point. It’s a confident, win-it-all or lose-it all-strategy that avoids the weakness of providing the court…