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Appellate Law

Texas Appellate Law Blog

Civil appellate practice tips, resources, and news on matters before the Texas appellate courts.
By D. Todd Smith

Post Frequency: 3.6/day

Last Entry: March 30, 2011 at 10:25:22

Craig Ball to Speak on E-Discovery

Posted on May 10, 2008
Though somewhat afield from this blog's primary focus, the topics of electronic discovery and computer forensics should concern anyone practicing law in this day and age. I am therefore pleased to announce that nationally recognized expert Craig Ball—a board-certified trial lawyer in his own right—will speak to the Austin Bar Association's Solo & Small Firm Section at noon on Thursday, May 22, 2008 at the Austin Bar office...

No Supreme Court Opinions This Week

Posted on May 09, 2008
The Texas Supreme Court released no opinions with this week's orders.Of interest, check out these posts from the Sophistic Miltonian Serbonian Blog and the Supreme Court of Texas Blog about the recent Texas Watch report criticizing the Court's alleged overreliance on per curiam opinions...

Stretch the Facts, Go to Jail?

Posted on May 08, 2008
The following is a guest post from Roger Hughes of Adams & Graham, LLP:Lawyers, and perhaps appellate attorneys, now face a new problem if their briefs or pleadings stretch facts or are flat wrong about them. That problem is indictment and jail...

Why I Love Oral Argument

Posted on May 07, 2008
As mentioned in my last post, I've been tied up getting ready for an oral argument I had today before the Third Court of Appeals here in Austin. The case is not the kind you would usually get that excited about, but we have a couple of good legal issues, and it got a fair amount of media attention when it was tried...

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Preparing for Argument

Posted on May 06, 2008
I am preparing for an oral argument tomorrow, which explains my silence on a number of issues worthy of commentary, including media coverage of the Perry Homes v. Cull decision and Ted Cruz's new position at Morgan Lewis. The Supreme Court of Texas Blog and others have covered these issues well...

New Panel in State Farm Rate Case

Posted on May 03, 2008
From an article in yesterday's Houston Chronicle:Five years after Texas insurance regulators ordered State Farm to cut homeowners' rates by 12 percent, the insurance company's legal battle to avoid the reduction continues to languish. The latest delay came this week, when nearly three years after the case was submitted to a three-judge panel of the Third Court of Appeals, it was assigned to a new panel...

Supreme Court Vacates Arbitration Award

Posted on May 02, 2008
The Texas Supreme Court issued one new decision and one substituted opinion with this week's regular Friday orders.In Perry Homes, a Joint Venture v. Cull (No. 05-0882), the Court held that the plaintiffs waived their right to arbitration by substantially invoking the litigation process, including "request[ing] hundreds of items of merits-based information and conduct[ing] months of discovery under the rules of court" before changing their minds "only four days before the trial setting ...

Three Steps for Improving Your Legal Writing

Posted on May 01, 2008
Wayne Schiess, the head of UT's legal-writing program and author of Wayne Schiess's legal-writing blog, spoke to the Austin Bar Association's Solo & Small Firm Section last week. Following the premise that lawyers are professional writers—an observation that applies with even greater force to appellate counsel—Prof...

Third Court Cancels FLDS Oral Argument

Posted on April 26, 2008
By this order, the Third Court of Appeals has canceled the oral argument on the application for emergency stay in In re Sara Steed, et al. (No. 03-08-00235-CV) and has summarily denied the stay. The court also denied the stay sought in the companion case, In re Faithann Jessop, et al...

No Supreme Court Opinions This Week

Posted on April 25, 2008
The Texas Supreme Court issued no opinions with this week's short set of regular Friday orders. The Court has been quite productive lately, as a number of the justices have mentioned at various bar functions, though several cases have been decided per curiam and merely follow a signed opinion on a particular issue...

Third Court to Hear FLDS Mandamus April 29

Posted on April 24, 2008
It turns out that Tuesday's post about FLDS appeals coming to Austin was timely. According to this press release and what I can gather from the Third Court of Appeals' web site, lawyers for Texas RioGrande Legal Aid filed a mandamus petition yesterday asking the court to order District Judge Barbara Walther to hold hearings at which each family would be able to respond to allegations of abuse before the children are placed in foster care in locations throughout the state...

Mr. Shore Argues to SCOTUS

Posted on April 24, 2008
Believe it or not, I'm a sucker for lawyer TV shows, in part because they're so unrealistic they make me laugh. I'd pretty much given up on ABC's Boston Legal this season; for various reasons, I thought the show had jumped the shark. But I couldn't help noticing Tuesday's episode entitled "The Court Supreme," in which James Spader's character, Alan Shore, argues an appeal to the U...

FDLS Appeal(s) Will Come to Austin

Posted on April 22, 2008
The West Texas town of Eldorado is more than 200 miles from Austin. So imagine my surprise when I realized that any appeals coming out of the drama surrounding the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints "Yearning for Zion" Ranch (which the ABA Journal describes as "what surely will be among the largest child custody cases in U...

This Week's Supreme Court Orders & Opinions

Posted on April 18, 2008
The Texas Supreme Court issued six opinions with this week's orders. I'm currently out of the office attending the Austin Bar Association Bench/Bar Conference (at which I am moderating a panel presentation by three Third Court of Appeals justices), so I haven't had an opportunity to review the opinions yet...

Should In-House Counsel Stick with Big Firms on Appeal?

Posted on April 15, 2008
In last week's Fat Friday e-newsletter (available through Technolawyer), lawyer-coach Debra Bruce outlined five reasons why corporate general counsel generally stick to BigLaw, despite rumblings about how high hourly rates and associate salary increases may lead them elsewhere...

Haynes Confirmed to 5th Circuit

Posted on April 10, 2008
The Tex Parte Blog is reporting that former Dallas district judge Catharina Haynes (pictured) has been confirmed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. She joins Judge Jennifer Elrod (previously discussed here) as Baker Botts alumna recently taking seats on the court...

Jim Ho Named Solicitor General

Posted on April 09, 2008
The "quiet trickle of a rumor" that Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher's James C. Ho (pictured) will succeed Ted Cruz as Solicitor General of Texas is true. Attorney General Greg Abbott's press release is available here.I have had the privilege of serving with Jim on The Appellate Advocate's editorial board for the past two years...

Forthcoming Appellate Rule Changes

Posted on April 08, 2008
The Texas Supreme Court recently announced changes to several Texas Rules of Appellate Procedure and the adoption of Texas Rule of Judicial Administration 15 . The rules highlighted below will have the broadest effect in civil cases...

This Week's Texas Supreme Court Orders & Opinions

Posted on April 04, 2008
After last week's barrage (from which I'm not the only one still recovering), the Texas Supreme Court issued just two decisions with this week's orders.In Ansell Healthcare Products, Inc. v. Owens & Minor, Inc. (06-0386) (per curiam), the Court followed last week's decision involving the same parties and issues, Owens & Minor, Inc...

How Should Contingent-Fee Agreements Address an Appeal?

Posted on April 01, 2008
I have been surprised at the variety of ways in which contingent-fee agreements address what will happen if the case goes up on appeal. Some don't deal with it at all, other than to say that the trial attorney is not obligated to pursue or defend an appeal should one be taken...

UT Conference on State & Federal Appeals Set

Posted on March 29, 2008
UT Law School will be holding its annual Conference on State and Federal Appeals on May 29-30, 2008 at the Four Seasons Hotel here in Austin. You can find more information about the conference and register online here.This is a "don't miss" event for lawyers looking to stay up to speed on current trends and emerging issues in Texas and federal appellate practice...

Join the LinkedIn Legal Blogging Group!

Posted on March 29, 2008
Kevin O'Keefe of LexBlog recently started a group on LinkedIn to try and connect with more folks in the legal industry who have an interest in blogging. The group is already up to about 350 members and could eventually grow into the thousands...

This Week's Supreme Court Orders & Opinions

Posted on March 28, 2008
The Texas Supreme Court made up for what had been a slow March by issuing an incredible 20 decisions with this week's orders. Timely posting links for each opinion—much less any meaningful analysis—would be unwieldy given my current schedule...

Editorial Responds to Watchdog Groups' Claims

Posted on March 27, 2008
Last night, the web version of the San Antonio Express-News ran a commentary by Osler McCarthy, the Texas Supreme Court's Staff Attorney for Public Information, addressing watchdog groups' recent claims regarding alleged ethics violations and docket backlog...

The Buzz on Hall Street v. Mattel

Posted on March 26, 2008
The blogosphere has been a little slow catching on to yesterday's SCOTUS decision in Hall Street Associates, L.L.C. v. Mattel, Inc. (06-989). Aside from my own post, here are the blog entries I have found discussing the case: Adjunct Law Prof Blog, which opines that parties to a collective bargaining agreement can still alter the standard of judicial review because they are governed by 29 U...

U.S. Supreme Court Invalidates Custom Standards of Judicial Review Under FAA

Posted on March 25, 2008
In Hall Street Associates, L.L.C. v. Mattel, Inc. (06-989) (previously discussed here), the U.S. Supreme Court has held that a contract purporting to allow judicial review of an arbitration award for evidentiary and legal errors cannot be enforced under the Federal Arbitration Act...

Potential Changes to Board Certification Rules

Posted on March 24, 2008
The Texas Board of Legal Specialization is considering changes to the certification criteria for Civil Appellate Law, among other areas. A redline of the potential revisions is available here.I have not studied the proposal word-for-word, but it appears to broaden the Board's discretion in determining who is authorized to sit for the exam...

More "Justice Delayed" Media Coverage

Posted on March 20, 2008
A blog associated with The Dallas Morning News and KVUE-TV here in Austin have both run new stories on the Texas Supreme Court's "backlog problem." As near as I can tell, neither has unearthed any previously unreported information, so the timing is something of a mystery...

An Evening with the Texas Supreme Court

Posted on March 19, 2008
The Appellate Sections of the State Bar of Texas and the Austin Bar Association are sponsoring a program entitled “An Evening with the Texas Supreme Court” on Thursday, March 27, 2008, from 4:30 to 7:00 p.m. at the InterContinental Stephen F...

Third Court Oral Argument Call-Out

Posted on March 18, 2008
<a href="http://www.blogged.com"><img src="http://www.blogged.com/widgets/108858_ccf11e428092abd1de041b9b1491aeab_verify.gif" border="0" alt="Blogged.com Blog Directory" /></a>What does one have to do to get a case set for oral argument before the Third Court of Appeals? It's a a rhetorical question I've heard others ask recently...

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