I’d love to have a nickel for every prospective client who has called me about appealing his case for the wrong reason. I don’t mean that he’s misidentified the best legal issue to raise, or even that his appeal has a very low probability of success. I mean reasons wholly apart from the merits of their case. When one of these prospects calls, he doesn’t know he wants to appeal for the wrong reason. It’s up to me to deliver the bad news, usually. You’re probably thinking that this is the part where I tell you not to call me if you’re motivated by any of these bad reasons. But the news…
-
-
Can your clients help you be more persuasive?
Here’s an article on my short list of must-reads: in Know Your Client: Maximizing Advocacy by Incorporating Client-Centered Principles into Legal Writing Rhetoric Practice, Rutgers-Camden law professor Jason Cohen advocates that lawyers look beyond the typical “write for your audience” mindset and incorporate the client’s values into their legal writing. From the abstract: Clinicians, however, have developed theories of client-centered lawyering which require that the attorney uncover their client’s values, goals and objectives that may go well beyond the discrete litigation at hand. Client-centeredness encourages the attorney to incorporate this information into his/her advocacy on behalf of their client. This article advocates incorporating select principles from client-centered lawyering into legal writing. The…
-
Why Some Lawyers and Their Clients are Reluctant to Engage Appellate Counsel, Part 1: Categories
(NOTE: This post is the first in a series. To read the announcement of the series and/or leave your ideas for subsequent installments, click here.) Well, it’s been four weeks since I promised a series of posts on this topic. You were probably about to give up on me. I started the first post, and it kept growing, and growing, and growing . . . clearly, some better way of organizing the topics was necessary. And I’ve devoted substantial time to it. How did I get to this point? I started writing about what I figure is the number one reason lawyers don’t engage appellate counsel. The trial lawyer thinks…
-
Why Are Some Lawyers and Their Clients Reluctant to Engage Appellate Counsel?
UPDATE: This post is included in Blawg Review #174 at Texas Appellate Law Blog. Why don’t some trial lawyers or their clients engage appellate counsel when it comes time for the appeal? Over the years, I’ve heard various reasons advanced for this. Among them: lawyers see no need to hire new counsel for something they can do themselves, lawyers are afraid to lose the client forever to the appellate lawyer or his firm, lawyers and their clients are afraid that the appellate lawyer won’t know enough about the specialized area of law involved in the appeal, clients are too comfortable with the trial lawyer to switch, clients are fed up…