Our Thanksgiving was marred by some terrible news–leading Texas appellate lawyer and rising star of the SCOTUS bar Gregory S. Coleman has died in a plane crash. How Appealing aggregates a number of reports.
Coleman argued Switzer v. Skinner in October, and in 2009 he handled–and won–what the Legal Times’ Tony Mauro called two of
The Supreme Court of Virginia handed down 19 opinions in November. 17 were unanimous, one was split 4-3 (Cordon v. Commonwealth) and the other was split 5-2 (Town of Leesburg v. Giordano).
For those who are interested–namely, me–here is a quick breakdown of the November opinions by justice:
Chief Justice Hassell
I received this email the other day:
I may search your archives, but if you’re casting about for blog post ideas, I’d love to see a post geared toward those who are about to take the plunge for the first time on (or are otherwise new to) handling an actual appellate oral argument.
Challenge accepted. Here are ten things I wish that someone had told me before my first oral argument:
1. Answer the damn questions.
The single best use of your time at oral argument is answering the Court’s questions. The Court is deciding your case. What interests the Court is of primary importance to you by definition. Further, nothing seems to irritate a court more than ignoring a question. As Judge Kozinski famously noted, there’s really no substitute for annoying the people who control your fate.
On that note, I wish that someone had told me not to worry about sticking to my outline, couching my answers in terms of my themes, controlling the discussion, and so forth. Seasoned jurists will see through that anyway. Just answer the Court’s questions as directly, honestly, and concisely as possible.
Hopefully, that will be no more complicated than a yes, no, or JA citation. If the answer requires qualification then, as John Davidson likes to say, “Answer first, and then explain.” In other words, “Yes, unless . . .” or “No, except that . . .”
Everything else on my list is subsidiary to this point.Continue Reading 10 Things I Wish I’d Known Before My First Oral Argument