Handout materials for October, 2023 Appellate Practice Seminar. Topics covered include: C-Track Update, Making Briefs More Persuasive, Interlocutory Appeals and more.
| Seminar Handout (16.4 MB) | 167 Pages | Available after Purchase |
Justice Gregory Carl Cook (“Greg”) was elected to the Supreme Court in 2022. Justice Cook is the son of Gene and Dottie Cook and is from Florence, Alabama. From an early age, his parents instilled in him faith, the value of hard work, and the importance of public service. He discovered early his passion for the conservative, optimistic principles of President Reagan’s shining city on a hill. Justice Cook attended Duke University on an Air Force ROTC scholarship, graduated in 1984 magna cum laude, and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He then served our country in the United States Air Force, reaching the rank of Captain. Justice Cook received his law degree from Harvard Law School in 1991, magna cum laude, where he served as an Executive Editor of the Federalist Society’s Journal of Law and Public Policy.
After finishing law school, Justice Cook moved back to Alabama and practiced law at Balch & Bingham for over 31 years. He handled a wide variety of matters in over 40 of Alabama’s 67 counties and in over 15 different states, including jury trials, bench trials, and arbitrations. A large part of his practice involved complex commercial litigation including a number of class actions. He is the author of the two-volume treatise Alabama Rules of Civil Procedure Annotated (5th Edition) and is the co-author and editor of two books: Class Action Strategy & Practice Guide (2018) and The Class Action Fairness Act: Law and Strategy (2013 and 2022). Before taking the bench, Justice Cook also served for many years on the Alabama Supreme Court Standing Committee on the Rules of Civil Procedure. Justice Cook has been active in the American, Alabama, and Birmingham Bars, including: as a member of Council and a Life Fellow (Section of Litigation, American Bar); as a Past Chair of the Business Torts and Antitrust Section and a Bar Examiner (subject-matter expert) (Alabama Bar); and as a Life Fellow, a member of the Grievance Committee, and a Past Chair of the Civil Courts Procedure Committee (Birmingham Bar). In his private practice, he received numerous awards and rankings, including from: Chambers USA, Best Lawyers (multiple areas), BTI Client Service All-Star, Benchmark (multiple areas), Super Lawyers, and Martindale-Hubbell. He is a long time member of the Federalist Society and the American Inns of Court, among other legal groups.
Brady E. (Brad) Mendheim, Jr., was appointed to the Alabama Supreme Court on January 22, 2018, by Governor Kay Ivey to fill a vacancy created by the retirement of Associate Justice Glenn Murdock. Before his appointment, Justice Mendheim served as a circuit judge for the 20th Judicial Circuit (Henry and Houston Counties), a position he had held since 2009. From 2001 until 2009, Justice Mendheim served as a district judge in Houston County. From 2001 until his appointment as an Associate Justice, he was appointed specially by various Chief Justices to preside over more than 250 cases in more than 40 Alabama counties. He graduated from Auburn University with high honors and from Samford University's Cumberland School of Law in 1993.
Mr. Haden is a Partner in the firm's Birmingham office, chairs the firm’s Appellate Practice Group, and is the author of the Alabama Appellate Practice Guide. His practice focuses on appellate litigation, including litigation in the healthcare, business, and energy fields. Before joining the firm, Ed served as the Nominations and Constitutional Law Counsel on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee for Chairman Orrin Hatch and as Chief Counsel of the Courts Subcommittee for Senator Jeff Sessions. He also clerked for the Honorable E. Grady Jolly of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and served as a staff attorney for the Honorable Harold See of the Supreme Court of Alabama. Ed serves on the Lawyers Advisory Committee of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. Best Lawyers in America ranked Balch & Bingham LLP number one in Appellate Law in Alabama and annually recognizes Ed. Martindale Hubbell ranked Ed as AV Preeminent. Benchmark Appellate recognizes Ed as a star in Eleventh Circuit-Alabama appeals. Ed regularly litigates appeals in the Supreme Court of Alabama and the Eleventh Circuit.
Aaron focuses his practice on appellate litigation and dispositive-motion briefing. He has represented multiple clients in appeals before the Alabama Supreme Court, the Eleventh Circuit and Fifth Circuit Courts of Appeal, the Texas trial and appellate courts, and the United States Supreme Court, and has served as appellate counsel for clients in major trials in Alabama and Texas. Aaron is also experienced in defending personal-injury, business-litigation, construction-defect and professional-malpractice cases and has published on Alabama legal-malpractice law for the American Bar Association’s Professional Liability Litigation Committee. Aaron also represents clients in lawsuits concerning charter schools, oil-and-gas contracts, and property damage.
Matt Fridy’s practice focuses on corporate litigation, constitutional law, campaign finance, agricultural/food law, appellate and critical motion litigation, and general litigation. A member of the Alabama State Bar, he is admitted to practice before the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, all Alabama federal district courts, and all Alabama state courts. Matt has served as an attorney to the Governor, Finance Director, and Comptroller of Alabama, successfully defending a State law barring government payroll deductions for political activity. He defended several members of the Alabama Educational Television Commission, which oversees Alabama Public Television, in a lawsuit by the Commission’s former executive director alleging violations of the State Open Meetings Act. His current work includes, among other things, representing a national developer of low-income housing tax credit properties in a challenge to the manner in which Boards of Equalization assess such properties, and representing several produce dealers and distributors relative to compliance with and litigation under the federal Perishable Agricultural Commodities Act.
Drawing on his years of experience as a senior staff attorney in the Alabama appellate courts, Matt represents the firm’s clients on an ongoing basis before the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, the Alabama Supreme Court, and the Alabama Court of Civil Appeals. Matt received his B.A. in history, cum laude, from the University of Montevallo and his J.D., magna cum laude, from the Cumberland School of Law at Samford University.
Travis Ramey is an Assistant Professor of Clinical Legal Instruction and Director of the Appellate Advocacy Clinic, which provides free legal assistance to parties and amici curiae in civil, criminal, and administrative appeals. Before joining the University of Alabama School of Law faculty in 2023, Professor Ramey was a partner at Burr & Forman LLP, where his practice focused on appellate matters. During his time in private practice, Professor Ramey litigated more than 100 appellate matters in multiple state and federal courts, including representing parties on the merits and as amici curiae in the Supreme Court of the United States.
Professor Ramey received his J.D., summa cum laude, from the University of Alabama School of Law. His scholarship focuses on appellate procedure and tort law. He currently serves as a member of the Standing Committee on the Alabama Rules of Appellate Procedure.
Marc James Ayers represents individual, corporate and governmental clients before state and federal appellate and trial courts throughout the country. Marc is listed in The Best Lawyers in America® and Mid-South Super Lawyers in the field of Appellate Law. He also has represented clients on petitions for certiorari and amicus curiae briefs to the U.S. Supreme Court. Marc has presented oral argument in the Fourth, Eighth, Ninth, Tenth, Eleventh, and D.C. circuits, and in various state appellate courts in Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, New York, Maryland, Mississippi, Texas and Wyoming.
Marc’s accomplishments have been recognized by his election as a Fellow in the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers. Marc served as chair of the Appellate Practice Section of the Alabama State Bar from 2008-2010, and is board certified in appellate practice by the Florida Bar’s Board of Legal Specialization and Education. He is frequently invited to lecture on appellate practice and is the author of several articles on that subject, among others. He also was nominated by the Justices of the Alabama Supreme Court to serve on both the Alabama Pattern Jury Instructions Committee as well as the Standing Committee on the Alabama Rules of Appellate Procedure.
Prior to joining Bradley, Marc clerked for Alabama Supreme Court Associate Justice J. Gorman Houston, Jr. (1998-99), and later served as Justice Houston’s senior staff attorney (2001-2004). Between those positions, Marc was in private practice, specializing in appellate litigation and constitutional and administrative law. During that time, he also taught as an adjunct professor of law, teaching First Amendment Law, Administrative Law, Public Interest Law, and legal writing/appellate advocacy. His work on statutory interpretation was cited as one of the most pertinent sources that influenced Justice Antonin Scalia and Bryan Garner in their treatise Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts.
David G. Wirtes, Jr. is a member of Cunningham Bounds, LLC of Mobile, Alabama, where he focuses on strategic planning, motion practice and appeals. Mr. Wirtes is licensed in all state and federal courts in Alabama and Mississippi, the Fifth and Eleventh Circuit Courts of Appeals and the United States Supreme Court. He is active in numerous professional organizations, including as a member of the Alabama and Mississippi State Bar Associations, long-time member of the Alabama Supreme Court’s Standing Committee on the Rules of Appellate Procedure, Sustaining Member of the Alabama Association for Justice (and Member of its Board of Governors and Executive Committee (1990-present); Member and/or Chairman, Amicus Curiae Committee (1990-present); and co-editor, the Alabama Association for Justice Journal (1996-present)), and the American Association for Justice where he serves as a Member of its Amicus Curiae Committee (1999-present). Mr. Wirtes is a Sustaining Fellow, Trustee and Officer of the Pound Civil Justice Institute; a Senior Fellow of the Litigation Counsel of America; a Founder and former Executive Director of the American Institute of Appellate Practice (and one of just fourteen persons certified nationwide by AIAP as an Appellate Specialist); and a Sustaining Member and the former Alabama Representative for Public Justice. He has published numerous journal articles and is a frequent lecturer at continuing legal education seminars, addressing topics such as Defeating Unlawful Discrimination in Jury Selection, Evidence, Examination of Witnesses, State Constitutional Protections, Immunity, Appellate Practice and Procedure, Electronic Discovery, and HIPAA and Ex parte Communications with Healthcare Providers.
Scott Donaldson was a Judge on the Alabama Court of Civil Appeals from 2013 until retiring in 2021 and was a circuit judge from 2003-2013. Before taking office, he had an extensive trial and appellate law practice for 18 years. Donaldson was also the Chief Judge of the Court of the Judiciary (the court that adjudicates all complaints filed against Alabama judges). He served on the Alabama State Bar Commission and State Bar Disciplinary Commission and is a current or former chair or member of numerous other judicial and legal committees including the Evidence Committee, the Civil Pattern Jury Instructions Committee, and the Appellate Rules Committee. He has been an attorney or trial judge in approximately 180 jury trials and in hundreds of bench trials. After retiring from the bench, Donaldson had an active mediation, arbitration, trial and appellate law practice. He is currently the General Counsel for the DCH Health System.
Donaldson is a faculty member of the National Judicial College and has taught many four-day evidence courses to hundreds of trial judges across the country. He has also taught evidence courses for 13 state judicial associations, the ABA Tort, Trial & Insurance Practice Section, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) and for the judges of the United States Patent Trial and Appeal Board. He teaches evidence and trial skills courses for the Alabama Circuit/District Judges Associations including new judge orientation sessions and for the Probate Judges Association. Donaldson taught Trial Advocacy at the University of Alabama School of Law each semester from 2006-2022 and was an instructor for the 40-hour Domestic Relations/Civil mediator training course for alabamamediationtraining.com. He is a frequent speaker at continuing legal education programs and has authored numerous legal articles as well as the Alabama Trial Notebook, published by the University of Alabama School of Law CLE program. He is a Fellow of the Alabama Law Foundation and Vice-President of the Board of Directors.
Autumn Caudell earned her undergraduate degree from The University of Alabama, and her law degree from Jones School of Law. She was admitted to the Alabama State Bar in 2013. Prior to joining the bar, Ms. Caudell practiced in a small firm for six years. She provided legal services in several different areas, including an emphasis on our indigent community through criminal and juvenile appointments as well as pro bono legal services with the Montgomery Volunteer Lawyers Program. She handled criminal and civil trial cases, as well as a substantial amount of transactional work and certificate of need (“CON”) work. Ms. Caudell joined the Bar as Assistant Ethics Counsel and Director of the Practice Management Assistance Program in 2019.
