Houston Appellate Lawyers
Looney Smith Conrad & Hefti, P.C. Houston Appellate Lawyers
Serving Houston, Hempstead, all of Texas and the United States
Since 1995 criminal defense lawyer Paul Looney litigated
60 criminal jury trials with Zero Final Convictions
Protecting Your Business and Family … 24 hours a day – 7 days a week.
Appellate law is having the power to review the judgment of another tribunal and undoing a less than favorable trial court decision. An appeal is not a new trial because new evidence or consideration of new witnesses cannot happen. Call Houston Appellate Lawyers today for a consultation: 281-597-8818.
A party who files an appeal is called an “appellant”, “plaintiff in error”, “petitioner” or “pursuer”, and a party on the other side is called an “appellee”, “defendant in error”, “respondent”. A “cross-appeal” is an appeal brought by the respondent. For example, at trial the judge found for the plaintiff and ordered the defendant to pay $70,000. If the defendant files an appeal arguing he should not have to pay any money, the plaintiff may file a cross-appeal arguing that the defendant should have to pay $250,000 instead of $70,000.
The appellant in the new case can be either the plaintiff (claimant), defendant, third-party intervenor, or respondent (appellee) from the lower case, depending on who was the losing party. The winning party from the lower court, however, is now the respondent. In unusual cases the appellant can be the victor in the court below, but still appeal.
Trial records and other documents including trial transcripts and evidentiary materials are what appellate lawyers review. After that, relevant case laws are analyzed to decide if an appeal can be made. These types of decisions are based on errors in the trial procedure or an error in the interpretation of the law.
If there is a sufficient reason for the appeal, the appeal lawyer files a brief. The brief presents relevant arguments for the appeal and seeks an opportunity for the appeal lawyer to argue those points.
We are dedicated to the following areas of Appellate Law:
