• Appeals,  Briefing,  Strategy

    The kitchen sink has no place on appeal

    We’ve all heard of doctors lamenting the need to order lots of tests for the most mundane symptoms in order to protect themselves from malpractice lawsuits. Are lawyers exhibiting equivalent behavior? Last week, a post at the Lawyerist blog (Want To Destroy Your Case? Throw In The Kitchen Sink.) featured a federal district court decision adopting the recommendations of the magistrate judge to order sanctions all around in a sexual harassment lawsuit — i.e., all of the attorneys on both sides had monetary sanctions imposed against them. On the plaintiff’s side, the attorneys were sanctioned for what Lawyerist called “evidence-free sexual harassment and retaliation allegations.” On the defense side, the attorneys representing the…

  • Mediation,  Strategy

    How to make your mediation brief effective

    There are some big differences between appellate mediation and mediation while your case is still pending in the trial court. But appellate and trial lawyers can both benefit from reading mediator Rande Sotomayor’s excellent article, “Effective Mediation Briefs,” in this month’s California Lawyer. I know Rande through my networking group, The Esquire Network (there’s my full disclosure), and have seen her present on other topics. I know her to be a very thoughtful mediator, and it shows in this article. What I found particularly persuasive was her advice that lawyers should get over their penchant for keeping the entirety of their mediation briefs confidential: Many lawyers submit “confidential” briefs to…

  • Strategy

    Opposing the pro se appellant

    I think a lot of people might think that any time the appellant is a lay person representing himself (i.e., appearing “pro se”), the respondent has a pretty easy time of it. Is that the case? I was reminded of this issue by an article on pro se plaintiffs in the Daily Recorder (subscription only link) titled “Pro Se Suits No Picnic for Defense Lawyers,” which described the difficulties of litigating against pro se plaintiffs at the trial court level. I think some of those difficulties can carry on through appellate proceedings, but overall I think a defendant-respondent in the court of appeal has an easier job opposing a pro…

  • Remand,  Strategy

    When winning is risky

    Sometimes, an appeal doesn’t make sense to me. This can be true even if there are better-than-average odds of winning. When an appeal doesn’t make sense to me, I ask why the party wants to appeal. I’m sure that most of the time, the reaction is to think, “Isn’t it obvious? Because I lost!” But to my mind, that’s not always a good enough reason. As a matter of effective client relations, I get curious about motives when it seems to me, as an outsider, that a win on appeal would yield a negligible benefit or even risk making the appellant worse off. An example of the latter situation is…

  • Standard of Review,  Strategy

    Huge Error, No Prejudice

    Too many people go into an appeal so certain that the trial court erred so obviously that reversal must result. This is rarely because the attorney doesn’t know that the error must have resulted in prejudice to warrant reversal, but because the attorney gives insufficient thought to the question of whether the error was genuinely prejudicial. As a result, the question o prejudice is not presented very well in the brief. I’m not sure exactly what was going through the mind of the attorney representing the defendant/appellant in Twenty-Nine Palms Enterprises Corporation v. Bardos, case no. E051769 (Fourth Dist., Nov. 13, 2012). He might have had some very reasonable arguments…

  • Legal Writing,  Oral Advocacy,  Strategy

    Narrowing Appellate Issues

    D. Todd Smith makes a good point at Texas Appellate Law Blog in the context of explaining why he likes oral argument: [O]ne of my favorite aspects of oral argument is that it forces you to distill your case down to the barest elements. As the appellant, if you can’t persuade the court based on your best two or three points—which should all be covered thoroughly in your brief—you’re probably going to lose. Hear, hear. I think the same approach pays off in briefing. Rarely do you read an opinion that refers to a “scattershot” or “shotgun” approach by the appellant where those terms aren’t used (at least implicitly) insultingly…