Find Lawyers in Denver, Colorado for Appellate Practice
Practice Area Overview
Appellate practice involves different skills and strategic considerations than trial practice. On appeal, the focus shifts from developing and proving facts (through discovery, examining witnesses, and trial) to the legal issues that decide the case. Effective appellate advocacy thus demands a formulation of the issues that is focused on what is important to a panel of appellate judges deciding the case.
In formulating the issues on appeal, an appellate lawyer conducts thorough legal research; analyzes the legal issues in light of the rule-making and policy considerations that shape the development of law; and then presents the facts and those issues and arguments selected for appeal concisely in a persuasive appellate brief.
The importance of a well-crafted appellate brief cannot be exaggerated. Appellate briefs receive greater judicial scrutiny than written materials prepared at trial because they are reviewed by a panel of judges, rather than a single judge, along with those judges’ larger legal staff, under comparatively less time pressure than exists in the trial court. As one appellate court has explained, appellate work is “most assuredly not the recycling of trial level points and authorities” but instead “entails rigorous original work in its own right” and “offers counsel probably their best opportunity to craft work of original, professional, and, on occasion, literary value.” In re Marriage of Shaban, 88 Cal. App. 4th 398, 408-10 (2001).
After the appellate briefing, oral argument is an opportunity to engage in a dialogue with the appellate judges regarding the issues in the case. To be effective, appellate oral advocacy must be keyed to the unique concerns of the appellate forum – avoiding emotional or fact-based pleas that may play well before a jury, but instead focusing on the dispositive legal issues, being sure to answer the judges’ questions.
In addition to the practice in the appellate courts, appellate lawyers play important roles in the trial courts. Appellate lawyers collaborate with trial counsel on strategic and tactical matters to raise all applicable arguments and make the appropriate trial record, identifying and preserving legal issues as they arise and crafting effective motions on substantive legal issues – before, during, and after trial.
Therefore, involving an appellate lawyer in a case as early as possible is important to ensure the best chance of success both at trial and on appeal.
A Denver native, Mr. Brooks’s practice concentrates on trial and appellate litigation in the areas of insurance bad faith defense, product liability, mass torts, insurance coverage, and construction defects. Mr. Brooks has been active in complex civil litigation on both the trial and appellate levels, particularly in product liability and insurance cases. His insurance practice concentrates on the representation of insurers in complex coverage and extra-contractual litigation arising ou...
Mr. Fishman joined Ridley, McGreevy & Winocur at its founding in January 2006. His practice focuses on appellate representation, and he is routinely retained by other law firms seeking to defend or challenge results obtained at the trial level, particularly in cases involving complex and/or novel questions of law. Mr. Fishman has argued civil and criminal appeals involving a wide array of federal and state constitutional, statutory and common law matters in numerous federal and state appe...
Bradley A. Levin, a shareholder in the Denver law firm Levin Sitcoff PC, focuses his practice on tort and commercial litigation, especially insurance bad faith and insurance coverage disputes. He has significant litigation and trial experience. Mr. Levin received his undergraduate degree from Stanford University, with distinction, where he was elected Phi Beta Kappa. He graduated from the University of California, Hastings College of Law, and served as editor-in-chief of the Hastings Constitu...
Emily Koekkoek represents clients in Colorado in cases of family law. In her attempts to make the transition through these issues as seamless as possible, she handles cases of divorce, child support, child custody, spousal support, protection orders, post-decree, mediation, property division, dependency and neglect, and nontraditional families. Ms. Koekkoek is a member of the Metro Denver Interdisciplinary Committee, the Colorado Bar Association and its family law section, and the Denver Bar ...
Our Methodology
Recognition by Best Lawyers is based entirely on peer review. Our methodology is designed to capture, as accurately as possible, the consensus opinion of leading lawyers about the professional abilities of their colleagues within the same geographical area and legal practice area.
The Process
Best Lawyers employs a sophisticated, conscientious, rational, and transparent survey process designed to elicit meaningful and substantive evaluations of the quality of legal services. Our belief has always been that the quality of a peer review survey is directly related to the quality of the voters.