Appellate

At Belvedere Legal, our briefs have a tone that is well-researched and credible, yet also pragmatic, incisive and never rote.

To be effective, appellate lawyers must:

• Work fruitfully and cooperatively with trial counsel
• Craft jury instructions and post-trial motions that preserve the issues for possible appeal
• Reframe the issues to maximum advantage
• Tell a compelling story within the constraints of the applicable standard of review
• Bolster doctrinal arguments with arguments about public policy and legislative intent
• Challenge a ruling, not the judge who issued it
• Know when to defend the trial court’s reasoning and when to suggest a simpler route to the same result
• Write a brief that blends emotion and reason without sounding like a jury argument
• Write clean, spare prose that says just enough
• We honed these skills through over a decade of legal, written advocacy.