valid order

La Dona È Mobile
    10/18/2016   Appellate Procedure, Child Custody, Citations for Obvious Points, Orders

What if a trial judge announces an order on the record, then goes home and has a change of heart? Sure, he already told the lawyers and the litigants that Mother can have the custody of the kids, but he did not actually put it in writing. Can the judge back out? If  he said that custody goes to Mother, can he wake up the next day and write an order giving custody to Father? The Court of Appeals today spoke plainly on the subject. Somewhat surprisingly, the answer is “yes.”  The oral pronouncement means nothing at all. The written order can…

Signed, Sealed, Delivered
    02/05/2014   Appellate Procedure, Interlocutory Appeals, Potential Pitfalls, Sanctions

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meaning of “interlocutory,” and where one goes to find the record, and why some of the published opinions are called “unpublished,” and why a “remand” is rarely a good thing.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…

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