Effective Appellate Advocacy before the Federal Circuit: A Former Law Clerk's Perspective

I first learned to appreciate the difference between effective and ineffective appellate advocacy while clerking for the Federal Circuit.In the hundreds of cases in which I read and analyzed briefs and observed oral argument during my year as a clerk, I saw lawyers who were well-prepared and effective and lawyers who were not.Indeed, I came to realize that the ineffective attorneys often made the same mistakes,' and that their mistakes would have been easy to remedy had the lawyers only realized they were making them.To that end, this article reviews some of the common mistakes that attorneys make before the Federal Circuit and * Attorney, Merchant & Gould, P.C., Minneapolis; clerk for the Honorable Alvin A. Schall of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, 2005-2006.The opinions expressed in this article are solely my own.I would nonetheless like to express my gratitude to Judge Schall,