When racial disparity and inequality came to a head in Summer 2020, it quickly became obvious that the association had a responsibility to respond and to act on the many long-standing contributing structural issues present not only throughout the country but here at home in the Indianapolis community as well.

Although the COVID-19 pandemic has caused there to be fewer court filings in some jurisdictions, Howard Bashman’s blog, How Appealing, continues to share multiple posts on a daily basis about appellate law and legal news.

The Indiana Supreme Court Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure has posted four proposed rule amendments online for public comment.   

If you want to maximize the persuasiveness of your appellate brief, spend time focusing on the structure of your brief in a meaningful way. 

The California Court of Appeal for the Second District held: “Excellent Lawyers deserve higher fees, and excellent lawyers are civil. Sound logic and bitter experience support these points.” 

As appellate practitioners, we all do our best to write clearly and persuasively but, in the end, how much does the quality of our brief matter? I am not aware of a study in Indiana that measures brief quality with outcome, but I ran across an interesting article that measures brief quality with outcome in the U.S. Supreme Court.

“What if you could get exactly what you want in life by reading and understanding the body language of murderers?” asks Janine Driver, New York Times Best-Selling Author and Award-Winning Keynote Speaker. With more than 16 years of experience as a federal law enforcement officer within the Department of Justice, Janine will be presenting the opening plenary session for the 2021 Bench Bar Conference in Louisville from June 17-19.

When the pandemic triggered closures and shutdowns, the Indiana Supreme Court and Indiana Court of Appeals quickly harnessed technology and moved to remote oral arguments using Zoom. Since March 2020, oral arguments in the United States Supreme Court have been remote as well. The United States Supreme Court now offers livestreaming of its audio and is hearing arguments via telephone.

Many recent Indiana Supreme Court opinions, authored by nearly every justice, have used contractions.

In December, the Indiana Supreme Court released its annual report for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2020. The report is full of interesting statistics, information about the court’s activities, and numerous colorful photographs. This post offers a few highlights.