What Do Appellate Lawyers Do

Leave this blog right now and run, don’t walk, over to the Appellate Record and read Kendall Gray’s blog post on what distinguishes appellate lawyers from trial lawyers. A presentation he gave to visitors to his firm from China inspired this post. It provides the simplest explanation of the key differences between the two types of practice that I’ve never thought of. It’s the perfect thing for the appellate lawyer to bring to the next family reunion, picnic, initial client interview, or for consultation in an ongoing case when you have to explain, again, why you can’t tell the appellate court about “all of those people who got up on that witness stand and told all those lies.”