What's the difference? Comparing the advocacy preferences of state and federal appellate judges.

Publication: Journal of Appellate Practice and Process

Publication Date: 22-SEP-05

Bookmark this article Print this article Link to this article Email this article Digg It! Add to del.icio.us RSS

COPYRIGHT 2005 University of Arkansas at Little Rock William H. Bowen School of Law

I. INTRODUCTION

Over the past several years, I have investigated the attitudes of appellate judges regarding various components of lawyers' advocacy on appeal. This article reports on the current results of my survey, which consisted of eighty-six questions divided into seven sections. I mailed this survey to all of the state and federal appellate judges in New England, New York, and the Mountain West in the hope of determining whether state and federal judges look at different aspects of appellate practice differently. I received responses from 138 judges, which amounts to over forty-nine percent of those who received the survey.

Some earlier results of the survey were presented last year in the Journal of Appellate Practice and Process. (2) But that article only reflected some of the responses, and it included none from the judges in the Mountain West. The graphs shown in this article, in comparison, present the responses to every question in the survey from every judge who responded.

II. METHODOLOGY

Each of the seven sections of the survey covered a different topic relevant to appellate advocacy:

1. The Structural Elements of Briefs;

2. Writing Style and Advocacy;

3. Use of Authority and the Record;

4. Typography of Briefs;

5. Physical Characteristics of Appellate Work Product;

6. Frequency of Certain Errors; and

7. Oral Argument.

The questions in each section...

Read the full article for free courtesy of your local library.