Louisiana Civil Appeals

Using grammar to play up the good and play down the bad

The New York Times has an interesting article about how Texas school textbooks use grammatical structure when talking about the history of slavery, to emphasize the less-bad parts and de-emphasize the worse parts. The short version: To play up the good, write sentences in the active voice, with real people as the subjects and real verbs. To play down the bad, use passive voice and hide your verbs in nominalizations.

For an older article on the same topic, follow this link.

Bridging the Gap: Free appellate CLE stuff

This morning, I presented an hour of CLE on appellate practice for the Louisiana State Bar Association’s “Bridging the Gap” seminar, a program for newly minted lawyers who just passed the bar exam. For attendees and anyone else who may be interested, here are some supplemental materials used or discussed in the presentation:

• My written materials
• A PDF copy of my presentation slides
• My article A Writ in Time, 51 La. B.J. 338 (Feb.–Mar. 2004)
• Two entertaining and informative articles by Chief Judge Alex Kozinski of the U.S. Ninth Circuit:
• In Praise of Moot Court—Not!, in which Judge Kozinski discusses the differences between law-school moot-court competitions and real-world appellate practice
• The Wrong Stuff, in which Judge Kozinski offers tips to help you lose your next appeal

For reasons discussed at the seminar and elsewhere, I recommend against over-reliance on forms. With that caution stated—and with no warranties—I offer some samples of pleadings and briefs, all in PDF:

• Notice of intent to seek a supervisory writ
  
• Application for a supervisory writ
• Request for oral argument
• Brief (La. court of appeal)
• La. Supreme Court writ application
• La. Supreme Court merits brief
• US 5th Circuit brief

La. Advanced Appellate Practice Seminar

If you’re a Louisiana lawyer looking for appellate-focused CLE, you should consider the LSBA’s Advanced Appellate Practice Seminar, to be held on Friday, November 6, in New Orleans. The faculty includes an in-house lawyer for Entergy and 10 Louisiana appellate judges. To view the full program and to register online, follow this link.