The Virginia State Bar and the Virginia Bar Association teamed up last week to present a stellar appellate CLE in Richmond.
The day started out with a panel of the chief jurists from Virginia’s appellate courts–Chief Justice Kinser of the SCV, Chief Judge Traxler of the Fourth Circuit, and Chief Judge Felton from the CAV–and
I’m fresh from the VTLA’s annual meeting at the Greenbrier, in all its seizure-inducing, Technicolor grandeur.
The event is always terrific and this year’s slate of speakers did not disappoint. Appellate topics included a panel discussion on petitions for rehearing and Justice Millette’s observations from his time on both the trial and appellate bench.
Focusing
Justice Sonia Sotomayor dropped by Sesame Street the other day to hear a dispute between Goldilocks and Baby Bear.
Enjoy. Thiis may be as close to cameras in the SCOTUS courtroom as we are going to get:
Earlier this week, we hosted the Virginia State Bar Appellate Section’s CLE on practicing before the Court of Appeals. The event was a success, but its timing was unfortunate: as James Markels noted in a comment to an earlier post, Senator Creigh Deeds just introduced SB 630, a bill to abolish the CAV.
I am told by a reliable source outside our firm that SB 630 is some kind of a statement being made by Senator Deeds, alone.
I am also told by sources closer to home that I should not make fun of legislators while Monica is a candidate for the Court of Appeals.
Ergo, I will not waste your time arguing against SB 630. (Although a person inclined to make such an argument might start with the caseload reports.)
Instead, secure in the knowledge that we’ve dodged intermediate appellate Armageddon for now, I will pass along some tips from the CLE after the jump.
About a year ago, I did a holiday post apologizing for the recent lack of substantive posts, and explaining what I’d been doing instead.
This year, I decided to make that sort of post a De Novo holiday tradition, for two reasons. First, it just gets really busy around here during the holidays.
Second, redoing
A piece in the Baltimore Sun last week makes the case that the traditionally conservative Fourth Circuit is becoming increasingly progressive.
The primary support for the argument appears to be:
We have a real treat for you today.
A major highlight of last week’s AJEI Summit was a surprise appearance by Chief Justice Roberts, who dropped in on our Thursday-night reception.
In person, the Chief is ever so dreamy, though perhaps not quite as tall as you might have expected.
(Shortness is endemic in appellate
Loyal readers are no doubt wondering what happened to last week’s post; I know that many of you plan your week around the sunbursts of appellate goodness that rarely regularly shine forth from these pages.
The short answer is that it’s hiding. Last week I did a guest post at Chris Hill’s blog, Construction Law
I’m a sucker for a good standard of review.
As the Curmudgeon likes to say, the standard of review decides cases.
And sometimes, unfortunately, that standard of review is abuse of discretion. See, e.g., John Crane, Inc. v. Jones, 650 S.E.2d 851 (2007) (affirming trial court’s exercise of discretion; accidentally starting inexorable urban
A few weeks ago, we welcomed Virginia’s new justices and appellate judges with a piece about the five worst parts of Virginia law.
In hindsight, that was probably a little rude: 
“Welcome to your new job. Here’s why it sucks.”
To make amends, here is a list of the five best parts of Virginia