The Fall Meeting of the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers was in Boston last month (Oct. 24-26).
Retired SCOTUS Justice Breyer was presented with the Kathleen McCree Lewis Award for his contributions to and impact on the delivery of appellate justice.
Programming included many panel discussions featuring appellate judges from around the country.
First Circuit Judge William Kayatta discussed his approach to working on appeals, which mirrors the process of many appellate judges countrywide: First, he reads the judgment/order being appealed; second, he reads the table of contents for the opening brief--less than half of which are any good or useful; next, he reads the summary of argument/intro; only after that will he dig in to the briefs and record. So the take-away tip (which is well known to most) is that the table of contents really matters and needs to be used well as an advocacy tool.
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