Appellate Brief Intros

In yesterday's Recorder Myron Moskovitz offers Master Your Appellate Brief Intro, providing his views on the differences between an intro for an opening brief (where he doesn't include any argument, instead focusing on the case background and issues) versus a respondent's brief.

Also of note in yesterday's Recorder, Keep it Civil, or Face the Consequences, which contains several  tales of sanctions imposed by appellate courts, e.g.:

New York Courts drew the line in Nachbaur v. American Transit Insurance Co., 752 N.Y.S.2d 605, 2002 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 12029 (1st Dept. 2002), when an attorney wrote a letter to the court in which he said his opposing counsel's manner of practicing law "indicates that she fits more as a clown in a circus than an attorney in a court of law." The appellate court upheld the trial court's imposition of sanctions and imposed further sanctions. Notably, this attorney had previously been disbarred from the United States Supreme Court after filing a petition for certiorari that called the chief judge of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals "chief injustice."

Court is no place to clown around...

In other SoCal appellate news, the DJ reports that MC Sungaila has moved from Snell & Wilmer to Haynes & Boone in Costa Mesa.

In the you-don't-see-this-everyday (thankfully) category, see this case here today, reversing for attorney misconduct, which J.Beds begins:

This is a case of egregious attorney misconduct. That word – egregious – is difficult to write, but nothing else seems adequate. Blessed with a trial judge who allowed it, trial counsel ran roughshod over opposing counsel and the rules of evidence. We have no choice but to reverse.

Generally, what happened is this: Defendant’s attorney Karen Bilotti would ask a question in clear violation of the trial court’s in limine orders. The question would usually have the effect of gratuitously besmirching the character of plaintiff Donn Martinez. An objection from Martinez’s counsel would follow. The trial court would sustain the objection. Bilotti would then ask the same question again. The trial court would sustain the objection again. And the same thing would happen again. And again. And again. And again.

Because of the cumulative effect of Bilotti’s misconduct we must reverse the judgment Bilotti obtained on behalf of her client .... Imagine a football game in which the referee continually flagged one team for rule violations, but never actually imposed any yardage penalties on it. That happened here and requires reversal.

[Law360 offers Atty Misconduct Spurs New Trial Over Calif. Bike Wreck]