Sanctions

Appeal That Wasn’t

North Carolina Lawyers Weekly published a correction regretting its errors in coverage of one of my appeals—an appeal which never existed. In January 2014, North Carolina Lawyers Weekly reported that I was personally held in contempt and was appealing that order. In April of this year, North Carolina Lawyers Weekly conducted additional independent investigation, and found that there was no such order in the first place. On April 21, 2014, North Carolina Lawyers Weekly corrected its earlier publications, wanting its readers to know: Attorney Aylward was not fined $4,600 (North Carolina Lawyers Weekly regrets the error) Attorney Aylward did not insult the…

Uh-oh. I Think I Need a Bigger Box.

A year ago, the North Carolina Court of Appeals handed down an opinion in O’Neal v. O’Neal, a small domestic case. The O’Neal opinion keeps me awake at night. When I need to pull an all-nighter, I sometimes re-read a couple of pages, and it shakes me right up. I thought the appellate bar would say something about O’Neal, but it went quiet. Pamela O’Neal moved to recuse the trial judge—historically speaking, an unremarkable occurrence in the North Carolina domestic courts. Pamela first perceived bias at a settlement conference when the trial judge presiding over her case commanded Pamela…

Signed, Sealed, Delivered

I signed up to teach a CLE about the basics of appellate practice. When I say “the basics,” I am not being modest. I will speak to the practitioners who never ever want to sign up for the username on the Court of Appeals’ website. Ever. The sort of warriors who win their trials the old-fashioned way—before the jury. We will talk about the meaning of “interlocutory,” and where one goes to find the record, and why some of the published opinions are called “unpublished,” and why a “remand” is rarely a good thing. And if I get really…

The Thirteen Words of Hennessey

A lot of divorce lawyers have this rule: do not take the case if you are not the first lawyer. Of the “ten signs she’s a problem client,” firing a previous counsel is at the top of the list. And if the client is on her third lawyer—well, that’s like a mark of shame, a regular fleur-de-lis on her shoulder. Personally, I never bought into the hype. I’ve been lawyer number five. It went fine. And why should a client have to stay with the same lawyer? It’s fine to change restaurants, hairdressers, girlfriends, courthouses. Some even change—so help…