Practice Areas & Industries: Fulbright & Jaworski L.L.P.

Practice/Industry Group Overview
Specialized skills. Wide experience. Attributes like these make Fulbright & Jaworski the solution to your appellate needs. With more than 30 appellate attorneys and support staff representing a wide range of experience, we provide timely and effective appellate services.

From assisting with motions for summary judgment, discovery sanctions, error preservation, and the jury charge to mandamus, post-trial motions and appellate briefs, our Appellate Practice Group is a valuable and comprehensive resource at all stages of the case.

Our clients benefit from the group's collective experience through a deep reservoir of team-created briefs and research papers, state-of-the-art document retrieval software, a network of moot courts and a culture of collaboration and information sharing. Our group is acclaimed for handling appeals at every level of state and federal court including areas such as:

If you would like a complimentary CD of Fulbright's recent United States Supreme Court Decisions Seminar, please contact any of our appellate attorneys.

When You Think APPEAL, Think Fulbright.™

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A Few Notable Opinions: The Importance of Experienced Appellate Counsel

The skills required to prevail in the trial court are not necessarily the same skills that reap rewards on appeal. Appellate judges emphasize the importance of retaining experienced appellate counsel.

Judge Laurence Silberman of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said appellate advocacy is a "specialty all to itself. Persuading juries takes different forensic and analytical skills than persuading appellate judges . . .a proposition that is not as well known as it should be among those executives of major corporations (of which I was once one) who retain law firms." .

Judge Ruggero Aldisert believes that appellate advocacy "draws upon talents and skills which are far different from those utilized in other facets of practicing law." The appellate lawyer:.

• seeks different objectives in a different time frame;

• carries a different sample case;

• has a different audience;

• deals primarily with law, not facts, and only with professional judges, not lay juries; and

• "has time dribbled out to the minute," compared to a trial lawyer who has days or weeks to persuade a trial judge or jury.

Appellate: Practice Scope

In addition to writing briefs and presenting oral arguments, our appellate lawyers provide extensive support to trial lawyers, both within Fulbright & Jaworski and outside the firm by:

• preparing the court's charge and attending the charge conference;
• monitoring trials to assist in preserving appellate complaints;
• preparing and responding to challenges to experts;
• handling mandamus actions or interlocutory appeals;
• seeking or resisting sanctions;
• preparing trial briefs in complex cases;
• preparing or responding to motions for summary judgment;
• filing or opposing motions to disqualify counsel; and
• conducting research on difficult and novel issues.