Appellate Practice
Also known as: Appellate Law
The distinct legal specialty of handling appeals, recognized as its own board-certification field by the Florida Bar since 1994.
Appellate practice is the specialized area of law focused on appeals: analyzing trial records, researching standards of review and preservation, and writing the briefs that argue why a lower court's decision should be affirmed, reversed, or otherwise addressed. Florida recognizes it as a distinct legal specialty; the Florida Bar established appellate practice as a board-certification field in 1994.
Appellate practice is a different skill set from trial litigation, not a more advanced version of it. A strong trial lawyer is not automatically a strong appellate lawyer, and vice versa. FloridaOnAppeal.com describes its own focus as educating both trial and appellate lawyers on successful appellate advocacy.