Brother Emmert has an essay with some updated appellate statistics. I’ll let him do the talking:
Thus far in 2020, The Robes have given us 41 published opinions and seven published orders. We’ve also seen 25 unpublished orders – rulings that adjudicate the appeal but don’t appear in Virginia Reports and don’t carry precedential
Just before Thanksgiving, the Supreme Court of Virginia issued a new opinion dealing with the voluntary-payment doctrine, Sheehy v. Williams. It’s worth reading for two reasons. First, the voluntary-payment doctrine trips up litigants and ends appeals. Second, Sheehy is just a well-researched and cleanly written opinion.
Continue Reading New SCOVA Case on the Voluntary-Payment Doctrine
Juli Porto has an article in this morning’s VTLAppeal, Is There a New Sheriff in Town Named “A.H. Tingler”?, analyzing SCOVA’s subtle importation of Twiqbal through A.H. v. Church of God in Christ, Inc. and Tingler v. Graystone Homes, Inc. Thoughtful and recommended. Among other things, Juli notes that the Court cited Twiqbal in A.H., then cited A.H. in Tingler as if it had always been Virginia law. She points out:
Continue Reading A New Sheriff in Town?
Chief Justice Lemons likes to say that an advocate develops three oral arguments in each case: the one they planned to give, the one they actually gave, and the one they wish they’d given.
Continue Reading Practical Legal Writing from the VTLA Annual Convention
As I’m writing this, I’m attending the VBA’s Appellate Summit, a fantastic CLE that comes around every three years. This year, the appellate council made asked me to moderate a 50-minute panel about brief writing. They won’t make that mistake again! Thankfully, the outstanding–dare I say heroic?–contributions of panelists Judge Robert Humphreys, Don Jeffrey, and Elbert Lin saved the session from disaster (nothing could save it from my dad jokes). It turns out that a panel that good can moderate itself.
Continue Reading Live Blogging the VBA Appellate Summit
Over the weekend, Official Friend of De Novo(TM) Ross Guberman posted a challenge on Twitter: Who could come up with a fresh way to convey the idea that opposing counsel is on a fishing expedition?
Continue Reading In Which the Author Goes Hunting and Very Nearly Catches a Woozle
Binding assignments of error are a disaster, which is probably why Virginia is one of only eight states that still require them.*
By way of background, Rule 5:17(c)(1) requires that
So we decided to send Jack to sleepover camp this year. You remember Jack, right?
Well, he’ a little older now. This is the first year that he’s eligible for camp, and he’s really been looking forward to it. We’ve been sending him letters every day, and we include the sports section from the local
I was lucky enough to spend the weekend in lovely Williamsburg, Virginia, home to this year’s VTLA annual convention. The highlights of the convention included (1) Justice Mims’s interview of Anne Marie Slaughter, (2) Anne Marie Slaughter’s brother‘s interview of Chief Justice Lemons, and (3) Kenneth Polite‘s talk on the power of
Hard as it may be to believe, I was actually writing stuff during the downtime between posts. People who ought to know better were kind enough to publish two of my articles: