Last night’s meeting of the NJSBA’s Appellate Practice Committee, of which I am a member and a past Chair, was a roundtable discussion with six distinguished Appellate Division judges.  The judges took questions and asked their own questions of those in attendance.  Some very valuable insights emerged, including the following ten thoughts (plus a bonus eleventh one):

1.  Many judges consider the Preliminary Statement a “critical” part of any brief.  It is advisable to include a well-written Preliminary Statement in every brief, but especially in more compl

Barna v. Maldonado, 2011 WL 5244968 (App. Div. Nov. 4, 2011).  The two appellants, who were plaintiffs in this case, appeared pro se.  In the Law Division, they had won a jury verdict of $1,050 in their dispute with their neighbor, defendant Maldonado, over a water drainage problem.  Plaintiffs appealed, seeking more damages.  In an unpublished decision, Judges Ashrafi and Fasciale affirmed the ruling below.

As non-lawyers representing themselves, plaintiffs did not supply the

Raspavolo v. New Jersey State Police, 2011 WL 2848475 (App. Div. Sept. 20, 2011).  Plaintiff appealed the January 22, 2010 denial of his motion to vacate a previously entered dismissal of his complaint for failure to state a claim.  In an opinion filed on July 20, 2011, the Appellate Division (Judges Grall and LeWinn) reversed the ruling below.  The panel noted that the record was “devoid of any decision or statement of reasons by the motion judge in support of the