A Guide to Depositions for Georgia Criminal Appeals Lawyers

blog-cover

A few months ago, the unthinkable happened on a habeas corpus case I am doing in South Georgia. The judge “suggested” that I handle some witnesses on a particular issue by deposition. There were all kinds of good reasons for it. The witnesses were spead out all over the State. I will probably get to…

Read More

Being OCD and Doing Criminal Appeals in Georgia

blog-cover

Today I found myself in a meeting with a prospective client’s family discussing handling a direct appeal in the Supreme Court of Georgia. The family is very organized and proactive and already had the trial transcript ready to go. To make things even better, trial counsel was present in the meeting to discuss things with…

Read More

The Lost Art of Dictation: Getting Legal Work Done Old School

blog-cover

A few weeks ago, I met with a respected colleague about a case we are doing together. The lawyer is one of the best criminal defense lawyers in Georgia. As I entered his office, I noticed something conspicuously absent from his desktop — computer monitors. Where a monitor might go, there was a dictaphone with,…

Read More

iAnnotate PDF as a Transcript Reader

blog-cover

A couple of days ago I posted about using the iPad in my appellate practice. In that post, I mentioned that one solution for reading transcripts on the iPad is the iAnnotate PDF reader as an application. There are several applications out for iPad that allow you to read pdfs, including Goodreader and the iBook…

Read More

SCOTUS Denies Cert on Weis

blog-cover

One more vestige of the Johnnie Caldwell legacy will remain in place, for a little while anyway. Greg Land at the Fulton Daily Report notes that the United States Supreme Court has denied Jamie Ryan Weis’s petition for certiorari. Mr. Weis has been sitting in the Spalding County Jail since 2006 charged with murder. His…

Read More

The iPad and Appellate Practice in Georgia

blog-cover

I’ve been working hard ever since I left a firm to go out on my own a few years ago to make my practice as paperless as possible. I really don’t want to spend a bunch of money storing old files in a mini warehouse somewhere. And one of the problems with appellate law is…

Read More