Today’s column is the first of a three-part series intended to help readers understand and hopefully avoid some of the most troublesome pitfalls lurking in appellate practice. This column focuses on the start of the appellate process—filing a notice of appeal or its equivalent to initiate an appeal. Next month’s column will focus on briefing the appeal—the appellate briefs and the appendix or reproduced record. And February’s column will focus on orally arguing an appeal.

Initiating an appeal by preparing and filing a notice of appeal is certainly the most simple aspect of the entire appellate process, albeit deceptively so. The Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure and the Pennsylvania Rules of Appellate Procedure each furnish an example of what a notice of appeal must contain, and each example is quite straightforward and unquestionably adequate to initiate an appeal. Nevertheless, deciding what a notice of appeal should include can present hidden dangers that are far better recognized in advance of filing than only after it is too late to remedy any defects that the notice of appeal may contain.

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