There’s Something Appealing About the Challenge of an Appellant’s Brief.
Mike Skotnicki
Posted on March 28, 2014
In my more than twenty years of lawyering I’ve worked both as an attorney inside the chambers of several Alabama Supreme Court justices and as an advocate for parties in appeals before both state and federal courts. I’ve learned of the difficulty in succeeding in the goal of overturning on appeal a ruling of a trial court. When you represent the appellant, the most favorable standard of review you can hope for is just de novo review, while the appellee often gets to rely upon more favorable standards such abuse of discretion. I’ve written about that here. Yet, that challenge is what makes it more intriguing, more interesting, more compelling. Because it asks more, requires more from you as an appellate lawyer. An average…