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Legal Research: How Do You Know When Enough Is Enough?
I’ve never been any good at figuring out when I’m done with a legal research project. This will come as absolutely no surprise to those who know my many personality flaws and obsessions. For most...
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Adding Insult to Injury? Virginia Code Section 8.01-682 and the Mysterious...
We get questions about this a lot. When the Supreme Court of Virginia issues a mandate affirming a judgment, it will sometimes include this line: ‘The appellant shall pay to the appellee two hundred...
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Guest Post: Confessions of an Oral Argument Junkie
Here’s a guest post from my partner and longtime friend of De Novo, Monica Monday, in which she owns up to her personal demons (such as they are): I admit it. I am an appellate argument junkie. This...
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A Christmas Present for Appellants from the Fourth Circuit
The Feats of Strength will follow the Airing of Grievances. On December 18, the Fourth Circuit gave appellants an early Christmas/timely Hanukkah/late Ramadan present when it clarified the requirements...
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Changes at the Supreme Court and Court of Appeals of Virginia
It’s hard to type with this law hammer. Congratulations to our new Chief Justice Donald Lemons and to the jurists recently elected to Virginia’s appellate courts–SCV Justice-elect Arthur Kelsey and CAV...
View ArticleLessons from Baca v. Adams: Video Breakdown of a Ninth Circuit Beatdown
Ever want to see the appellate equivalent of torture porn? Here’s a video that’s making the rounds of an oral argument from the Ninth Circuit in a case called Baca v. Adams: Skip ahead to 16:03, and be...
View ArticleNew Paper: Appellate Experience is Correlated with Success on Appeal (at...
I just finished reading a thought-provoking law review article summarizing a multiple regression analysis of a sample set of 200 Ninth Circuit opinions handed down between 2010 and 2013. No, really,...
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Supreme Court Thoughts and Muses from the VTLA’s Annual Meeting
My mother-in-law has a hat just like this. Just about everyone who’s argued before the Supreme Court of Virginia has tortured him- or her-self with the same mind game at one point or another. It...
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How Not to Write an Appellate Brief, by George R. R. Martin
Winter is coming. That sixth book? Not so much. Today’s post considers the writing process of one of the most successful authors alive. But first, a confession: Big nerd here. I could not be more...
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Slightly off topic, but . . .
Not the same greenway that we’re talking about, but you get the idea. The scariest moment in my life happened a few years ago. I’d taken Caroline and Jack down to the greenway, Roanoke’s riverside...
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Good Advice from a Bad Man . . .
. . . or at least, the author of the “bad-man theory” of the law. I was delighted to learn that Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., has his own wikiquote page. Here are some of his inspirational musings,...
View ArticleYes, You Can Start a Sentence with “And” or “But”
As longtime readers have no doubt picked up, I’ve got sort of a distinctive writing style for legal writing. If I had to characterize it, I’d say that it falls somewhere between “prickly” and “shrill.”...
View ArticleA Key Document is Missing from the Record–Now What?!
It’s not an unusual situation: The appellate lawyer realizes late in the game that a key document–a crucial exhibit, maybe, or a necessary transcript–is missing from the record. The document is...
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SCV Updates List of Acceptable Fonts!
How could I have missed this?! On December 15, the Supreme Court of Virginia revised Rule 5:6 to update its list of acceptable fonts. (H/t Steve Emmert.) Until now, SCV briefs had to be printed in...
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I Wrote a Thing
Always keep your Law Hammer handy when writing words. Hard as it may be to believe, I was actually writing stuff during the downtime between posts. People who ought to know better were kind enough to...
View ArticleLegal Technology Update from VTLA Annual Convention
I was lucky enough to spend the weekend in lovely Williamsburg, Virginia, home to this year’s VTLA annual convention. The highlights of the convention included (1) Justice Mims’s interview of Anne...
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Letters from Camp
So we decided to send Jack to sleepover camp this year. You remember Jack, right? Well, he’ a little older now. This is the first year that he’s eligible for camp, and he’s really been looking forward...
View ArticleBinding Assignments of Error
Binding assignments of error are a disaster, which is probably why Virginia is one of only eight states that still require them.* By way of background, Rule 5:17(c)(1) requires that Under a heading...
View ArticleIn Which the Author Goes Hunting and Very Nearly Catches a Woozle
Over the weekend, Official Friend of De Novo(TM) Ross Guberman posted a challenge on Twitter: Who could come up with a fresh way to convey the idea that opposing counsel is on a fishing expedition?...
View ArticleLive Blogging the VBA Appellate Summit
As I’m writing this, I’m attending the VBA’s Appellate Summit, a fantastic CLE that comes around every three years. This year, the appellate council made asked me to moderate a 50-minute panel about...
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