There is no discovery, and the appellate record is limited to what was presented to the trial court. An appeal is presented to a multi-judge appellate panel and is decided almost entirely on the written briefs. The procedural and strategic issues on an appeal are very different than the issues involved in other types of litigation This section of the webpage contains a short explanation on what appellate law is and how it differs from other areas of litigation. It then contains discussions on several different appellate issues. Many of these discussions were taken from the submissions of appellate lawyers throughout the country to CounselWeb's appellate law e-mail discussion list.
Appellate practice varies from state to state and from federal circuit to federal circuit.
We are in the process of having attorneys in different states develop substantive webpages on appellate law is each state and in each federal circuit. This section of the webpage contains links to the appellate law webpages covering different states and the federal circuits. The section of the webpage contains information about whether you need an appellate attorney and what to look for when selecting one. It also contains lists of appellate attorneys in different states. There is a tremendous amount of information about the law on the internet.