Example 7th Circuit Appellate Brief

Table of Contents

What is a Brief?

A brief is a legalized written document or report, used in different legal opposition systems, presented to a court stating why a particular case should rule in favour of one of the parties involved in a particular case. There are three types of brief namely;

Reply brief
Appellant brief
Respondent brief

Reply Brief

The aim of the reply brief is to allow the appealing party (appellant) to state his argument in respect to issues arising from the respondent or appellee’s brief. Note that a reply brief is not used to reiterate arguments, already analyzed in the appellant’s brief. If there no new issues raised in the respondent’s brief, then the reply brief is set to be superfluous.

Appellant Brief

Here the appellant, under several rules of the court, is obliged to file a written brief which should be a summary of his argument as contained in the appeal. The time frame allotted for the brief filing varies from one court to another, but for the Supreme Court, the appellant’s Brief must be documented and delivered within the span of ten weeks.

Respondent Brief

A brief filed and written in favour of the decision, taken at the lower court, appealed against in order to affirm that the decision taken was correct. The respondents brief must be presented at the Supreme Court within eight weeks. But at the Court of Appeal, the respondent’s brief is expected to be filed within thirty days.

What is Appellate

Appellate is an appeal made to a court of appeal for a case, which was decided at a lower court, to be reviewed. Here the judgment of the court of appeal or the Appellate court gives the final directive of the appellate court in respect to the appealed case, specifically setting out that the appealed action should be reviewed, modified, or reversed.

What is an Appellate Brief

An Appellate Brief is a legal document, written by counsel as the ground for arguing a case. It comprises of arguments that are based on facts and are legal and the authorities that support such facts. Put simply, an appellate brief is a brief submitted to the court of appeal by a party in a court that exercises such as appellate or appellate jurisdiction.

The function of the brief is to help set up the legal argument for the appealing party, elaborating on the reasons why the lower court’s judgment should be reviewed, reverse or affirmed on the grounds of the common law. The appellate brief is always submitted by the party that is petitioning for an appeal or the appellant.

The respondent (the other party which the lower court’s decision was in favour of) will also file a brief in reply to the appellant’s appellate brief within a given time. Following the case, the court might decide the case on the grounds of submitted briefs or through an oral argument by the appellee and the appellant.

Example 7th Circuit Appellate Brief -What does 7th Circuit mean?

The 7th Circuit of the United States Court of appeal is a federal court of appeal, or you can say the appellate court, with the legal power with regards to appeals petitioned to it. It looks into the appeals within its jurisdiction, from all the courts within its circuit.

The 7th Circuit was set up in 1891 with Evarts Act of 1891, by the United States Congress. It subsequently set up nine Appellate circuits with the court having two judges. As the years passed by, nine more seats were added to the first two court seats, making it a total of eleven judges with Deane S. Sykes serving as the chief judge.

The 7th Circuit also has the appellate authority over criminal and civil cases, heard in one of its subordinate districts. The circuit Judge for 7th Circuit is Judge Brett Kavanaugh. Four of the court’s judges were appointed by the current president of the United States of America, in the person of Donald Trump.

Everette M. Dirksen Federal Building is where appeals are heard. The building is located in Chicago. The 7th Circuit is currently the sixth circuit with 63.8% overturn rate, having recorded a total of 30 reversed cases and 17 affirmed cases, making it a total of 47 decided cases.