This summer, while your attention may have been understandably focused elsewhere, the Superior Court of Pennsylvania issued two noteworthy decisions offering brief-writing and issue selection advice. Because helping lawyers improve the quality of their appellate advocacy is a regular focus of this column, and because the appellate advocacy aspects of these two recent rulings did not garner widespread notice, a closer look at the relevant aspects of these two recent decisions is warranted.
In James v. Albert Einstein Medical Center, No. 1723 EDA 2016 (Pa. Super. Ct. Sept. 12), Senior Judge William H. Platt, writing for a unanimous three-judge panel, considered a case in which the appellant’s opening brief was 78 pages long.
