Featured Articles

I Am John Roberts and So Can You, Part II: Oral Argument

May 24, 2011 13:16

Chief Justice Roberts has a well-deserved reputation as a stellar oral advocate. In Bryan Garner's words, the oral arguments he gave during his days at Hogan were "generally breathakingly good."  Or as Miguel Estrada once put it, the "G" in John G. Roberts stands for...

Good Ideas That I Stole From Smart People: Dealing with Stress at Oral Argument

May 10, 2011 15:10

Controlling anxiety is one of the hardest parts of oral argument. Everybody gets nervous. You never really outgrow it. I've seen even very experienced, very good lawyers--lawyers much better than I'll ever be--undone by their own nervous energy at oral argument, spitting...

Musings of a Rookie Justice: Justice Mims Reflects on His First Year on the Supreme Court of Virginia

April 04, 2011 12:52

Justice Mims stole the show at this year's VTLA convention, sharing his reflections on his first year on SCOVA a year to the day after he was sworn in. For some reason, most speakers at the convention chose to focus on the unpleasant, pre-appeal...

Legal Writing Tips: I Am John Roberts and So Can You!

March 02, 2010 13:06

Ross Guberman of Legal Writing Pro has a fun piece, Five Ways to Write Like John Roberts, that's worth checking out. In the essay, Guberman distills five writing lessons from Roberts's brief in Alaska v. EPA. Those lessons are: Let your facts "show, not tell." Add speed...

Recent Articles

Galumbeck v. Lopez: Supreme Court of Virginia Catches Some Waives

March 16, 2012 18:50

The Supreme Court of Virginia handed down 20 published opinions and 1 published order last session. One of those opinions, Galumbeck v. Lopez, contains enough waiver for the entire term. It's the most waiverlicious opinion I can remember seeing since Commonwealth Transportation...

Justice Sotomayor Visits Sesame Street

February 09, 2012 17:13

Justice Sonia Sotomayor dropped by Sesame Street the other day to hear a dispute between Goldilocks and Baby Bear. Enjoy. Thiis may be as close to cameras in the SCOTUS courtroom as we are going to get:    

La Fin Absolue du CAV?

January 27, 2012 19:34

Earlier this week, we hosted the Virginia State Bar Appellate Section’s CLE on practicing before the Court of Appeals. The event was a success, but its timing was unfortunate: as James Markels noted in a comment to an earlier post, Senator Creigh Deeds just introduced SB 630, a bill...

Delegate Calls for Study of CAV's Jurisdiction

January 17, 2012 17:27

Interesting news from Richmond: House Joint Resolution 111, sponsored by Delegate Sal Iaquinto (R-Virginia Beach--pictured), would direct the Judicial Council of Virginia to study the jurisdictional capacity of the Court of Appeals. HT: Peter Vieth at Virginia Lawyer's Weekly. In...

January SCV Opinions by the Numbers

January 15, 2012 17:38

The Supreme Court of Virginia handed down a remarkable bath of opinions on Friday. The 20 opinions included 7 dissenting opinions, which is highly unusual for a court previous notable for its consensus. Stranger still, the 12 civil cases generated all 7 dissenting opinions (one case, Weedon v....

What's Weirder than an Unpublished Order?

January 05, 2012 13:46

Here's a question: Is it stranger that the Supreme Court of Virginia decides some cases by unpublished order, or that it publishes any opinions at all? A colleague and I were recently trying to track down a recent unpublished order from the SCV the other day. We weren't having much...