LAW 5473 - Appellate Practice and Procedure

Credit(s): 2
Students cannot take both this course and the Advanced Appellate Advocacy Seminar (LAW 5813). The history and importance of appellate practice, from Tacitus to Holmes, to Cardozo. The appellate rules and procedures in the Louisiana Courts of Appeal, the Louisiana Supreme Court, the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, the Supreme Court of the United States. Inside Louisiana appellate courts, appeal of right, discretionary review, writ practice, internal operating procedures. The record on appeal. Certiorari practice. The factors conditioning the appeal, The Facts, The Law, The Judges. Tips on research, drafting the brief, argumentative headings, strong, forceful argument, with samples of winning briefs. The appellate argument, with samples of winning oral arguments, Actual records, briefs, and arguments are the core of the course. Course book: Baier and Lemmon, Lawyers in the Great Tradition: The Argument of an Appeal (Law Center Publications Institute). Text book: Frederick Bernays Wiener, Effective Appellate Advocacy (Revised edition, American Bar Association, 2004). Guest appellate practitioners and judges are featured. Grade based on written assignments and multiple choice examination on appellate rules and procedures.