Appellate Courts: Structures, Functions, Processes, and Personnel

This edition promises to redefine the canon of the study of appellate courts, continuing the comprehensiveness and increasing the depth of the First Edition. This edition of Appellate Courts provides teachers with choices that are suitable for a two- or three-unit course or a seminar. The book permits emphasis on either appellate jurisdiction and practice or on the structural and policy aspects of appellate court organization and administration. All the chapters have been revamped and updated, with coverage of appellate jurisdiction substantially expanded.

Using both classic and new cases, the book examines theoretical and practical issues arising from the appellate courts’ dual roles to correct trial court error and to generate common law. Its coverage of the dramatic rise in the volume of appeals and the resultant institutional reforms far surpasses that of any other law school course book. Fresh materials present new perspectives on appellate structures, personnel, and procedures—preparing students to practice in the contemporary state and federal appellate courts.

This provocative book considers such issues as the delegation of responsibility to law clerks and staff attorneys, the threats to judicial collegiality, the selection of state and federal judges—including the regulation of judicial candidates’ speech, and the role and ethics of the appellate lawyer. It devotes a separate chapter to the U.S. Supreme Court’s discretionary jurisdiction while another chapter draws upon Professor Meador’s unique understanding of the English and German appellate systems to contrast those systems with our own.

In short, this book is unique in not only exploring appellate jurisdiction and procedure but also in taking the measure of the appellate courts in all their dimensions as important institutions in the American legal order.