Appellate Advocacy

"Nothing is so difficult to believe that oratory cannot make it acceptable.

Nothing is so rough and uncultured as not to gain brilliance and refinement from eloquence" 

         Marcus Tullius Cicero  (The Columbia World of Quotations, 1996.)

"I made three arguments of every case.

First, came the one that I planned  - logical, coherent, complete.  

Second was the one actually presented - interrupted, incoherent, disjointed, disappointing.

Third was the utterly devastating argument that I thought of after going to bed that night."

         Justice Robert H. Jackson, U.S. Supreme Court (Lawyer's Wit and Wisdom, ed. Bruce Nash, Allan Zullo, Running Press: Philadelphia, 1995)

It has also been said that a trial is a search for truth and that an appeal is the search for error. (Renee M. Pomerance; Appellate Advocacy: Presenting the Oral Argument, http://www.scai-ipcs.ca/pdf/Pomerance-PresentingtheOralArgument.pdf )  

This LibGuide is intended to assist students and faculty at the UMKC School of Law to identify resources for research in Appellate Advocacy.

While it is always a work -in-progress the basic structure of the information presented here will identify relevant print resources in the Law Library; App.Ad. related content within the major commercial electronic resources; federal appeals specifically using the web sites of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, the Supreme Court and the 8th and 10th U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeal; state appeals specifically focusing on the Missouri and Kansas judicial websites; and, sources for information about federal legislation and Congressional activity related to appellate advocacy.