Skip to Main Content

Explore Our Capabilities

Appellate

Overview

A broad spectrum of clients turn to Parker Poe for their highest-stakes appeals before federal and state courts. Our Appellate Team has decades of experience protecting trial court victories and reversing unfavorable results for clients across industries. From our offices in the Carolinas, Georgia, and Washington, DC, we represent clients before the U.S. Supreme Court, federal circuit courts, state supreme courts, and state appellate courts.

Our work starts at the trial level and continues through appeals to the highest courts. At the trial level, we partner with clients and broader trial teams from the very beginning of the case to develop appellate strategy, including on how to position each case and preserve key issues for the record. This includes embedding appellate counsel on trial teams to provide strategy, insight, and advice on developing a favorable record on appeal.

Once the case moves to the appellate stage, we offer a wide variety of appellate services, both in defending favorable rulings and in correcting trial court errors. This includes working with trial counsel in navigating local appellate rules and practices, advising on appellate strategy and presenting briefs and oral arguments to the appellate court, and, where appropriate, taking the lead on strategy, briefing, and argument. In doing so, we draw on our experience drafting briefs and presenting oral arguments in scores of cases, as well as the lessons our attorneys have learned as law clerks with federal circuit courts and state appellate courts.

We handle appeals involving not only cases we have tried but also cases referred to us from clients or other lawyers who seek effective collaborators in large, complex litigation. We have a particularly deep understanding of the local rules and customs in the Southeast's appellate courts, and we are frequently called on by out-of-state counsel for our insight.

Representative Experience

Our appellate experience runs the gamut in terms of legal practices, covering appeals in state and federal class actions and multidistrict litigation (MDL), complex business disputes, municipal and local government litigation, and patent, employment, environmental, antitrust, and state and federal constitutional issues. We have experience representing Fortune 500 companies, health care and pharmaceutical clients, educational institutions, insurance companies, state and local governments, and many others in their highest-stakes appeals.

A particular highlight of our appellate practice is the representation of North Carolina school districts in what has been described as one of "the most important North Carolina Supreme Court rulings in living memory," in which we worked to establish the state constitutional right to a sound basic education for all public school students in North Carolina.

With a wealth of experience across Parker Poe’s footprint, our Appellate Team has the knowledge and skills to guide our clients through their most challenging appeals.

Loading Content

Professionals

Loading Content