Council of Appellate Lawyers Chair Message

The Council of Appellate Lawyers has been hard at work developing new programs and services to offer as benefits to our existing members and to attract new members to this extraordinary group. Here are a few of the exciting things CAL is currently working on.

Pro Bono Committee

We are pleased to announce that CAL Board member Rebecca Powell of Horvitz & Levy in Los Angeles is the new Co-Chair of the Pro Bono Committee, joining Arleigh Helfer of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression in Philadelphia, who has served as Co-Chair of this Committee for several years. Rebecca and Arleigh have announced a new “Amicus Clearinghouse” project that will connect nonprofit or public-interest organizations looking to provide amicus curiae support in pending appellate matters with CAL members who want to draft amicus briefs for those organizations on a pro bono basis. Both Rebecca and Arleigh have been deeply involved in pro bono and public-interest matters in their own communities for years and have seen a growing need for this kind of assistance. And it provides a valuable opportunity for appellate lawyers to provide pro bono services using their unique set of skills. CAL members interested in offering pro bono amicus brief-writing services should contact Rebecca or Arleigh for more information. 

Communications Committee

We are also pleased to welcome Daniel Moore of Saul Ewing in Baltimore as the new Co-Chair of the Communications Committee, alongside Devin Dolive of Burr & Forman in Birmingham, Ala., the long-serving leader of this Committee. The Communications Committee has traditionally been responsible for preparing the CAL Newsletter, which was emailed to CAL members to remind them of upcoming programs and events. As CAL expands its reach through social media and larger prospective-member networks, the Newsletter will serve a broader purpose of introducing CAL and its members to new readers, reporting on CAL activities past, present, and future, and sharing short commentary by CAL members on issues or topics of the day, to encourage readers to learn more about the value of CAL membership and get involved. For example, the Newsletter will soon contain a monthly “Meet the Judges” feature, a short profile of the judges and justices in the leadership of the Judicial Division and the Appellate Judges Conference, how they found their way to the appellate bench, and why they choose to be active in the ABA.

CAL’s Expanded LinkedIn Presence

CAL will soon unveil a more robust presence on LinkedIn, adding an organizational profile and a Public Group page. CAL has long maintained a members-only Private LinkedIn Group for dialogue among trusted colleagues, and CAL will continue to do so. And by adding these new LinkedIn pages, CAL can publicly post items like the Newsletter, programming announcements, and other items of interest so they will be visible to the larger appellate community. CAL members and subscribers can also repost this information to their personal LinkedIn networks and expand CAL’s reach exponentially. Users can also “tag” the CAL organizational profile in LinkedIn posts, allowing readers to click a hyperlink and instantly access CAL’s page and post history. This functionality will be very helpful to our efforts to market the Appellate Judges Education Institute (AJEI) Summit more broadly than we have done in the past. Once the new profile goes live, we will be inviting everyone to “like and follow” CAL on LinkedIn and to join and participate in the Public and Private Group pages!

AJEI Summit

Several CAL members are also hard at work on the AJEI Planning Committee, along with delegates from the Appellate Judges Conference (AJC), the Council of Appellate Staff Attorneys (CASA), and the National Judicial College (NJC), among others. The Summit will take place from November 13 through November 16 in Minneapolis, Minnesota—home of the legal-products business of Thomson Reuters, long-time supporter of the ABA and the Summit. The Summit will be held at the Renaissance Depot Hotel, a newly-renovated boutique hotel in the trendy Mill District area of the city, surrounded by world-class restaurants, museums, and acres of parks and trails along the Mississippi River. As devoted Summit attendees know, no other conference offers advanced appellate practitioners and judges the kind of sophisticated programming AJEI offers, taught by some of the most prominent jurists, legal scholars, and practitioners in the country. We expect to start announcing program topics and confirmed speakers in the weeks to come. Also be on the lookout for the upcoming edition of Appellate Issues, containing a recap of AJEI 2024 in Boston!

If you’d like to get involved with any of our committees or publications, please contact me ([email protected]) or our ABA staff liaison Amy Dasgupta ([email protected]).

Gretchen Sperry
2024-2025 Chair, AJC Council of Appellate Lawyers