Guidelines For Writing Better Appellate Decisions By A Newly Practicing Judge

Posted by David Harper on July 24th, 2018

An appellate court, also known as the appeals court is usually a high court or the Supreme Court that conducts the cases appealed from the subordinate courts. The trial courts are generally the courts that administer the primary proceedings of the case. The losing party of the case can appeal to the higher court that is usually the high Courts and also the Supreme Court from time to time. The job of the appellate attorneys' job is to correct the judgment of the trial court and persuades the appellate court to change the law.

Guidelines For An Appellate Court Judge

Some guidelines and points should be followed by an appellate court judge while writing an appellate decision, especially if he/she is new in the practice. The significant tips are listed below:

Audience-Minded – the judge should keep in mind the audience and also remember that the decision of the case has already been made once. There is an automatic pressure on him/her as the level of scrutiny is sky high in such cases.

Structure And Writing – the appellate decision should have a proper structure. The headings and points of the case should be specified. The case should be explicitly described and in stringent details only. There is not much need for background depth. The structure should have an introduction, facts and the proceedings of the case in more information, discussions on the case, the fee of the attorney and the conclusion.

Jurisdiction Confirmation – the proper jurisdiction and standards of the review should be specified. How the facts are constructed and formed on are important, and they are the basis of the decision of the case.

Introduction – the introduction of the judge is essential. The reader should be hooked to the appellate decision through this one paragraph of introduction. This one paragraph can have the descriptions of the form of case, the holdings, the parties that are involved and also the outcome of the case. For complex decisions, more than one paragraph can be added to the introduction.

Own Writing Style – it is a smart move to develop your format and style of writing and addressing the readers. It gives a specific rare factor to your appellate decision writing. There are many proper appellate law firms that can provide further and better-defined guidelines to writing an appropriate appellate decision.

Appellate law decisions can be a big test on an appellate judge. It requires vast research from the past cases and needs acute attention to details. It is a challenging work for the judge as the proceedings start with a case that has already been made decided. The appellate courts have a lot of scrutiny on such cases.