The Fourth Circuit is notoriously stingy when it comes to granting oral argument. Last year (admittedly an odd year), CA4 terminated 696 private civil cases. It terminated 86 of them, or 12%, after oral argument. It reversed in 36 of them, or just over 5%. Steve Klepper has a nice essay from 2014 about all of this over at the Maryland Appellate Blog. He argues that given modern Fourth-Circuit practice, the statement concerning oral argument under Local Rule 34(a) is the most important part of a brief. Steve urges appellants and appellees alike to include a robust statement about the need for oral argument, drawing on the criteria for publishing opinions under Local Rule 36(a):

Opinions delivered by the Court will be published only if the opinion satisfies one or more of the standards for publication:
i. It establishes, alters, modifies, clarifies, or explains a rule of law within this Circuit; or
ii. It involves a legal issue of continuing public interest; or
iii. It criticizes existing law; or
iv. It contains a historical review of a legal rule that is not duplicative; or
v. It resolves a conflict between panels of this Court, or creates a conflict with a decision in another circuit.

This is great advice! I’ve cribbed it before. But why are we going back to the well now?
Continue Reading Oral Argument and Revised Code Section 17.1-403

I had my first two two telephone oral arguments in the Supreme Court of Virginia this morning. Merits arguments at that. They were weird! How so? Glad you asked:
Continue Reading Quick Report From a Pair of Telephone Oral Arguments at SCOVA

Longtime readers know that I’m a huge fan of oral argument. Giving counsel a chance to address the Court’s questions before the decision conference strikes me as vital.

But for obvious reasons, recent events have complicated courts’ efforts to hold argument.Continue Reading Oral Argument During the Pandemic

Raffi Melkonian, an appellate lawyer from Texas and the dean of #appellatetwitter, has been working on what he considers the hardest problem at oral argument: the judge who has misunderstood something and is angry about it.
Continue Reading The Hardest Problem at Oral Argument

Have you seen this week’s Virginia Lawyer’s Weekly? First page, above the fold, is an article called “10 Steps for Preparing for an Appellate Argument” by Dawn Solowey, a tall-building lawyer from Boston. As longtime readers know that I’m a sucker for these articles.

Unfortunately, this one is an exception. It’s bad–preposterously bad, really,…

There’s a lot to like about practicing in the Fourth Circuit–the case managers are excellent, the local rules and IOPs are intuitive, and the staff is remarkably responsive. It’s probably the most user friendly court I’ve ever seen . . . except…