At cocktail parties, I frequently get asked what appellate lawyers do. I typically answer that sort of question in procedural terms, explaining how we help make sure that the law is properly presented to the jury, that the judgment conforms to the law and the evidence, and that any legal errors committed by the trial judge are corrected on appeal. But I am sometimes tempted to answer by describing the broad substantive range of appellate practice.

Appellate lawyers stick their collective noses into everything. A Google News search on the word "appeal" produced the following, all occurring within 24 hours of the writing of this post:

  • "Immigration board hears deportation appeal from former Nazi guard"
  • "A man is appealing the dismissal of his lawsuit that sought to undo the sale of The Balsams Grand Resort"
  • "A federal appeals court in Virginia is set to review a former Texas businessman's conviction in a $100 million life insurance fraud scheme"
  • "South Africa's Standard Bank said on Friday it would appeal an arbitration ruling to refund at least $60 million worth of shares to a union pension fund"
  • "The former pharmacist, who is serving a life sentence for fatally shooting a wounded, unarmed robber in 2009, is asking the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals to overturn the murder conviction"

Few appellate practitioners have a docket quite that broad. But my own cases at the moment involve bankruptcy, chiropractic practice, government contracts, immigration, insurance fraud, medical malpractice, oil & gas, partnership disputes, property insurance, real estate, securities fraud, title insurance, trade secrets, and zoning. A trial lawyer likely couldn't competently handle such a wide range of cases, but the nature of appellate practice – confinement to the appellate record, to complaints preserved in the trial court, and to well-established standards of review – means that generalist appellate lawyers can learn what they need to know about the substantive law applicable to each case, while relying on their expertise in dealing with the appellate court system.

In Abraham Lincoln's day, lawyers hung out their shingles and never knew whether the next client through the door would need a will, or a contract, or a divorce, or to file or defend a lawsuit. Those days are largely gone; most of today's lawyers specialize to one degree or another. But the fun and the challenge of practicing appellate law is to compete with those specialists, using the home-field advantage of a highly-structured appellate process to make up for having to learn the opponent's playbook for each new appeal.

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