This post is the second in an ongoing series about maximizing a party’s chances of prevailing on appeal. The trial is over, the verdict is in and the loser wants to appeal. Should the same lawyers who handled the trial also handle the appeal themselves or retain an appellate specialist as co-counsel? Consider the following benefits to retaining an appellate specialist:
1. For appellants, the trial lawyer’s arguments obviously were not persuasive at the trial level. Simply repeating the same arguments on appeal is not likely to succeed. Moreover, following the intense experience of going through trial, a second opinion may be warranted. As observed by Justice Kenneth R. Yegan in Estate of Kilkison (1998) 65 Cal.App.4th 1443:
[T]rial attorneys who prosecute their own appeals…may have ‘tunnel vision.’ Having tried the case themselves, they become convinced of the merits of their cause. They may lose objectivity and would be well served by consulting and taking the advice of disinterested members of the bar, schooled in appellate practice.
Continue reading “3 Reasons a Trial Lawyer Should Retain an Appellate Specialist as Co-Counsel”