Unpublished Opinion Review Blues

Today's DJ has a couple of appellate-related articles.

To begin, Gary Watt, chair of the Appellate Practice at Hanson Bridgett, presents Navigating Appeals, a nautical adventure through the first few chapters of Title 8, covering issues including: filing the notice of appeal designating the record, and briefing deadlines. {This article also has an MCLE Self-Assessment test at www.dailyjournal.com/mcle.}

Next,  Chris Hu of the Moskovitz Appellate Team offers Unpublished Opinion Review Blues, noting how the Cal Supremes do sometimes grant review of unpublished cases--but "rarely." He explains that the 6% grant rate in the court's statistics report is an inflated figure because it includes 'grant and holds' and 'grant and transfers. Looking at only full grants, the overall rate is a mere 3% and over the past couple years, review of unpublished cases is only about 10% of the Court's civil docket. Chris looked at every case in 2016 and 2017 where full review was granted in an unpub'd civil case--only six cases! He then looked at the PFRs in those cases, and noted that every one of them either expressly or implicitly explained why the case was worthy of review despite being unpublished. He distilled three key questions to consider:
1. Is there a procedural reason why other cases involving your issue are unlikely to result in published opinions?
2. Does the opinion in your case follow one side of an existing split?
3. Is there an absence of published authority on an important issue, leading to divergent results?