The Appellate Brief

As of July 2020, COVID-19 has had a marked effect on appellate filings in Florida. The first reported cases of COVID-19 in Florida were on March 1, 2020. As of July 8, 2020, appellate filings are down by about 23% year-over-year. The Fourth District Court of Appeal has been hit the hardest, with an almost 29% reduction, while the Florida Supreme Court has seen a reduction of only 16%. See more detail in the infographic.

So you’ve had a judgment entered against you. Now what? Well, whether your judgment involves damages or an injunction, child custody or a conviction, every appeal goes through a similar process. In this article, we’ll discuss the five major steps of the appeal process.

Florida appellate attorney Samuel Alexander appeared on Fox 13 Tampa to discuss his pro bono representation of Majid Esmaeili, who has appealed a trial court's ruling that effectively imprisoned him on his own property. The case is now pending in Florida’s Second District Court of Appeal. You can watch the video here:

If you’re headed up to an appellate court, you will find yourself in an entirely different world from that of the trial level. But, just like at trial, there is a lot of legal terminology you’ll need to understand. Without understanding the language of appellate courts, you can’t understand the appellate process. This post is intended to provide an introduction to some of the most important terminology used by appellate courts, and by doing so to provide an introduction to the appellate process.