| The Role of the Appellate Court's Legal Staff |
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| The legal staff of an appellate court include the clerks of court, short-term law clerks, career law clerks, and staff attorneys.
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| Legal Aid Societies and Offices of the Public Defender |
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| Most states have legal aid societies, which are non-profit organizations that provide free legal assistance to indigents in civil matters. States also have public defenders who provide free legal representation to low income persons in criminal, juvenile, mental health, and dependency cases. More... |
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| Rules of Statutory Interpretation |
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| If the interpretation of a particular law becomes an issue in a case, the court must rely on rules of statutory interpretation or construction in deciding the law's meaning. This article discusses the main rules of statutory interpretation or construction. More... |
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| Judicial Precedent |
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| The doctrine of stare decisis (which means "stand by what has been decided") is the legal principle underlying judicial precedent. When a court lays down a principle of law as applying to a particular set of facts, the court will apply that principle to all future cases where the facts are substantially similar. Under stare decisis, a judicial decision made in one case is binding on all later cases with similar facts. More... |
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| Federal Appellate Procedure |
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| A litigant can file an appeal after a United States District Court, which is the federal trial court, enters a final judgment in the case. The person filing the appeal is called the appellant, and the other party is called the appellee. This article discusses the steps in the federal appellate procedural process when a case is appealed from the United States District Court to the United States Court of Appeals. More... |
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