Appellate litigation is a unique practice area in which decisions of the trial court are appealed to the Court of Appeals or Supreme Court in the hopes of obtaining reversal or, if you are the respondent, of solidifying your victory once and for all. Almost by...

It may seem obvious that the time to contact an appellate attorney is when you want to file an appeal. But there are benefits to getting an appellate attorney involved even during earlier stages of your case. Here are six times it might make sense to seek an appellate...

Whenever a party wants to appeal a district court’s decision, it is crucial to comply with all the requirements in the Minnesota Rules of Civil Appellate Procedure to do so. One such requirement is Rule 103.01, subd. 1, which requires serving the notice of appeal on...

Properly preserving legal arguments at the trial court is crucial for setting a case up for a successful appeal. For years, courts across the country have been divided on whether a purely legal issue raised in a summary judgment motion must be reasserted post-trial in...

It’s no secret that appeals can take a long time. As I described in a previous post, that is one of the factors that should be considered in deciding whether to appeal. Recently, the Minnesota Supreme Court issued a decision that illustrates this point. Specifically,...

Determining whether a probate order in a supervised administration is appealable can be challenging. Minn. Stat. § 525.71(a) lists a dizzying array of 17 types of probate orders that are immediately appealable. But probate courts make many decisions that do not fall...

Twenty years ago, the Minnesota Supreme Court formally adopted the collateral order doctrine in Kastner v. Star Trails Ass’n, 646 N.W.2d 235 (Minn. 2002). In the years since then, the appellate courts have applied the doctrine several times, but it remains a...