Sunday, October 28, 2007
My law partner and I have always thought of ourselves as pretty good writers, and we enjoy modest success as freelancers, so I guess there is some basis in fact for this belief, but it has been a while since we have turned out a piece of legal writing that I like as much as the motion for leave to appeal to the Court of Appeals that we just turned out. The merits I'll talk about some other time, but the crafting of the motion really caught our imagination.
New York's Court of Appeals is the highest court in the state, with narrow jurisdiction over questions of law only. Although there are matters which can be taken up as of right, for the most part it self-selects its docket, and the object on a motion for leave is to persuade the Court that your case presents an interesting and significant question. It isn't enough that the Appellate Division may have erred-- the case has to have something that grabs the attention of the judges.
I've never been to the Court of Appeals. I think we have done a pretty good job of laying out what makes our case important. I can't wait to see what the Court has to say about it. Without going into it, our claim involves the rights of the innocent, and our client spent 12 years in Dannemora before he cleared his name-- a tale right out of Victor Hugo, if you ask me.
New York's Court of Appeals is the highest court in the state, with narrow jurisdiction over questions of law only. Although there are matters which can be taken up as of right, for the most part it self-selects its docket, and the object on a motion for leave is to persuade the Court that your case presents an interesting and significant question. It isn't enough that the Appellate Division may have erred-- the case has to have something that grabs the attention of the judges.
I've never been to the Court of Appeals. I think we have done a pretty good job of laying out what makes our case important. I can't wait to see what the Court has to say about it. Without going into it, our claim involves the rights of the innocent, and our client spent 12 years in Dannemora before he cleared his name-- a tale right out of Victor Hugo, if you ask me.
// posted by Bill @ 3:58 PM 
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