Appellate Practice - Virginia and Federal Courts

L. Steven Emmert, co-editor and author of Chapter 7, practices with the Virginia Beach firm of Sykes, Bourdon, Ahern & Levy, P.C. He focuses his practice exclusively on appellate advocacy in the state and federal courts. Mr. Emmert is a frequent lecturer in Virginia and elsewhere on appellate topics, and maintains a free website devoted to appellate practice in Virginia at www.virginia-appeals.com. He is a member of the Virginia State Bar (Past Chair, Appellate Practice Committee), Virginia Beach and Federal Bar Associations, Virginia Bar Association (Founder and Past Chair, Appellate Practice Section), the Boyd-Graves Conference (Past Chair), Virginia Trial Lawyers Association, American Bar Association (Council of Appellate Lawyers), and Litigation Counsel of America. Mr. Emmert is admitted to practice in Virginia courts, United States District Courts for the Eastern and Western Districts of Virginia, and the Court Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. He received his undergraduate degree from Richmond College in 1979 and his J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1982.

Frank Friedman, co-editor and author of Chapter 5, is chairman of the Woods Rogers Appellate team. He has handled appeals across a broad spectrum of topics ranging from personal injury, property rights, labor and employment, to criminal, domestic, tax, products liability, and malpractice.

Mr. Friedman is currently serving as chair of the Appellate Practice Section of The Virginia Bar Association (VBA). He has served previously as the chair of the Board of Governors of the Litigation Section of the Virginia State Bar and chair of the Board of Editors of The Journal of Civil Litigation. He is a member of the VBA’s Boyd-Graves Conference and is past president of the Board of the Virginia Capital Representation Resource Center.

Mr. Friedman is a frequent speaker on appellate topics, including brief writing, oral argument, and waiver. Mr. Friedman was named one of the Top 100 Lawyers in Virginia by Virginia Super Lawyers magazine (2013-2016). His appellate work is also recognized in rankings by Best Lawyers in America and Virginia Business magazine’s “Legal Elite” list. He was named a “Leader in the Law” by Virginia Lawyers Weekly in 2015.

Erin Ashwell, author of Chapter 1, is a principal at Woods Rogers PLC. Her practice focuses on appeals and civil litigation. Ms. Ashwell regularly practices in front of the Supreme Court of Virginia, the Court of Appeals of Virginia, as well as Virginia’s state and federal trial level courts. She is licensed to practice law in Virginia and California. Prior to joining Woods Rogers, Ms. Ashwell was a trial attorney for the United States Department of Justice, with cases throughout the western states. She also served as a pro se law clerk for the United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia and as a law clerk to the Hon. Michael F. Urbanski, then United States Magistrate Judge. Ms. Ashwell graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College and cum laude from Harvard Law School. Ms. Ashwell is on the board of trustees of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Southwest Virginia and the Roanoke Public Libraries Advisory Board and was previously president of the Roanoke Chapter of the Virginia Women Attorneys Association. Ms. Ashwell has been cited by Virginia Super Lawyers as a “Rising Star” and has earned the President’s Volunteer Service Award. She is one of Virginia Business magazine’s “Legal Elite.”

Johan Conrod, co-author of Chapter 3, is a member of Kaufman & Canoles, P.C., where he practices in the litigation and business tax practice groups. He handles commercial litigation matters, including insurance coverage disputes, tax disputes, business tort claims, § 1983 suits, media/defamation claims, shareholder disputes, and real property litigation. Mr. Conrod has been recognized as a “Rising Star” and “Super Lawyer” in Law & Politics (2007-2015) and also has been recognized in the Young Lawyer and Appellate categories of Virginia Business magazine’s “Legal Elite” (2005, 2007, 2009-2015). He began his career as a law clerk to the Honorable B. Waugh Crigler; United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia. He is a member of The Virginia Bar Association and the Norfolk-Portsmouth Bar Association and a former president of the Federal Bar Association, Tidewater Chapter. He is admitted to practice in Virginia state courts, the United States District Courts for the Eastern and Western Districts of Virginia, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, and the United States Supreme Court. Mr. Conrod received his bachelor’s degree from Liberty University and his J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law, where he served on the Editorial Board and the Managing Board of the Virginia Law Review.

John D. Eure, co-author of Chapter 4, is a member of the Roanoke law firm of Johnson, Ayers & Matthews, P.L.C. He is a member of the Virginia State Bar, The Virginia Bar Association, the Virginia Association of Defense Attorneys, and the American Bar Association. He chairs the Board of Editors of the Journal of Civil Litigation, a quarterly journal published by the VADA. He is an editor of A Guide to Legal Research in Virginia, published by Virginia CLE. Mr. Eure has lectured in continuing legal education seminars on appellate practice, legal writing, and insurance coverage matters and has lectured in the Roanoke City Public Schools on Shakespeare and on Restoration and Eighteenth Century British literature. He earned a B.A., magna cum laude, from Yale University and an M.A. and J.D. from the University of Virginia.

Justice Kelsey, co-author of Chapter 8, serves on the Supreme Court of Virginia, after previously serving as an appellate judge on the Court of Appeals of Virginia and a trial judge in the Fifth Judicial Circuit of Virginia. Before entering public service, Justice Kelsey was a partner at Hunton & Williams. He graduated from William and Mary Law School in 1985 and from Old Dominion University in 1982.

Benjamin V. Madison, III, author of Chapter 2, is Professor and Associate Dean of Curricular and Instructional Affairs at Regent University School of Law in Virginia Beach, where he teaches Appellate Advocacy, Civil Procedure, and Pretrial Practice and Procedure. Previously, Dean Madison was a partner in the law firm of Hunton & Williams and practiced on its Litigation, Intellectual Property, and Antitrust Team. Dean Madison received his B.A. degree from Randolph-Macon College in 1981, his M.A. degree from the College of William and Mary in 1982, and his J.D. degree from the Marshall-Wythe School of Law at the College of William and Mary in 1985. He served as a law clerk to the Honorable Walter E. Hoffman, Senior United States District Court Judge, from 1985 to 1986. Dean Madison is a pastpresident of the Tidewater Chapter of the Federal Bar Association. He also has been and continues to be a leading member of the James Kent American Inn of Court. Before and after becoming a full-time law professor, Dean Madison participated in over fifty Continuing Legal Education courses on a range of subjects, including Appellate Practice, Trial Practice, Federal Procedure, and Ethics. Dean Madison has recently published a casebook, Civil Procedure for All States, which breaks from the traditional legal textbook by following the recommendations of the 2007 Carnegie Institute Report on needed reforms in law school education. Professor Madison was recently honored as a fellow of the Educating Tomorrow’s Lawyers initiative, founded by Mr. William Sullivan, lead author of the 2007 Carnegie Report (http://iaals.du.edu/educating-tomorrows-lawyers/projects/resources/coursesyllabus-state-civil-procedure).

Judge Stephen R. McCullough, author of Chapter 6 and co-author of Chapter 8, is a Justice on the Supreme Court of Virginia. He was elected to the Supreme Court in 2016 and served as a Judge on the Court of Appeals of Virginia from 2011 to 2016. Before his appointment to the bench, he served in a number of roles in the Virginia Attorney General’s Office, including Opinions Counsel, Senior Appellate Counsel, and State Solicitor General. He clerked for the late Leroy R. Hassell, Sr., who later became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Virginia. Judge McCullough has litigated extensively in Virginia’s appellate courts, in the Fourth Circuit, and in the United States Supreme Court. In 2007, he was a United States Supreme Court Fellow with the National Association of Attorneys General. He has also served as an instructor at the T.C. Williams School of Law at the University of Richmond. Judge McCullough received his B.A., with high distinction, Phi Beta Kappa, from the University of Virginia and his J.D., cum laude, from the University of Richmond.

Lauren Tallent Rogers, co-author of Chapter 3, is an associate at Kaufman & Canoles, P.C. Her practice focuses on civil litigation. Prior to joining Kaufman & Canoles, Ms. Rogers served as a law clerk to the Honorable Mark S. Davis, United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Virginia. Ms. Rogers graduated with honors from the University of Kansas and magna cum laude from Washington & Lee University School of Law, where she was on the Editorial Board of the Washington & Lee Law Review. Ms. Rogers is admitted to practice in Virginia courts, United States District Courts for the Eastern and Western Districts of Virginia, and the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. She is a member of The Virginia Bar Association, the Norfolk-Portsmouth Bar Association, and the Federal Bar Association. Ms. Rogers serves on the board of the Hampton Roads Chapter of the Federal Bar Association and has been cited by Virginia Super Lawyers as a “Rising Star.”

George Somerville, co-author of Chapter 4, is Senior Counsel to Harman Claytor Corrigan & Wellman. His practice focuses on appellate litigation in state and federal courts. He also represents clients at trial in general civil litigation and in water use permitting and litigation in state and federal administrative agencies and courts. He has represented clients on appeal in cases with issues ranging from state and federal constitutional law to church property law, commercial, business, and corporate governance law, NEPA and the Clean Water Act, the Coastal Zone Management Act, the National Historic Preservation Act, maritime salvage, and criminal defense. Mr. Somerville is a frequent lecturer in continuing legal and other professional education programs in the areas of appellate litigation, water resource development, and related issues of environmental law. He has been recognized in The Best Lawyers in America in Appellate Practice (2010-2016); Virginia Business magazine’s “Legal Elite” in Legislative/Regulatory/Administrative Law (2007, 2009-2010) and Appellate Law (2011-2015); as a “Virginia Super Lawyer” in Environmental Litigation (2007), Business Litigation (2014), State, Local & Municipal Law (2014), and Appellate Litigation (2013-2014); and Virginia Living magazine’s “Best Lawyers in Virginia” in Administrative/Appellate Practice (2012). He is a member of the Boyd-Graves Conference and a Fellow of the Virginia Law Foundation, and he has served as a member of the Faculty of the Virginia State Bar’s Harry L. Carrico Professionalism Course (2009-2012). He is a graduate of West Virginia University (A.B., 1973) and the University of Virginia School of Law (J.D., 1980) and served as a law clerk for the late Ruggero J. Aldisert, United States Circuit Judge, from 1980 to 1982.

Farnaz F. Thompson, co-author of Chapter 6, is Associate University Counsel at the University of Virginia and Assistant Attorney General, Virginia Attorney General’s Office. Her practice focuses on federal education laws, including Title IX, 20 U.S.C. § 1681, et seq., and the Clery Act, 20 U.S.C. § 1092(f); general civil litigation, including § 1983 suits and suits under the Virginia Tort Claims Act; laws governing federal contractors; and employment law. She has also served as an Adjunct Professor of Law at Regent University School of Law (2012-2015). She was Law Clerk to the Honorable Eric G. Bruggink, Senior Judge, United States Court of Federal Claims (2007-2008), and to the Honorable Leroy Rountree Hassell, Sr., former Chief Justice, Supreme Court of Virginia (2008-2011). She is a member of the Virginia State Bar Young Lawyers Conference Board of Governors and the Thomas Jefferson American Inn of Court. She is admitted to practice in Virginia courts, United States District Courts for the Eastern and Western Districts of Virginia, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, and the United States Supreme Court. Ms. Thompson received her undergraduate degree from the University of California, Berkeley, in 2004, and her J.D. in 2007 from the Regent University School of Law, where she was on the Board of Editors of the Regent University Law Review (2006-2007). This chapter is written in Ms. Thompson’s personal capacity only and does not necessarily represent the opinions or reflect the views of the University of Virginia or the Virginia Attorney General.

Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III, co-author of Chapter 8, is a Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. Judge Wilkinson earned his B.A. degree, magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, from Yale University. He received his J.D. degree in 1972 from the University of Virginia School of Law (Law Review, Order of the Coif). Upon graduating from law school, he served as Law Clerk for Supreme Court Justice Lewis F. Powell, Jr. Following his clerkship, Judge Wilkinson taught at the University of Virginia School of Law and was Professor of Law from 1981 to 1984. After serving as editor of the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot from 1978 to 1981, he was appointed Deputy Assistant Attorney General of the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice. Judge Wilkinson was appointed Circuit Judge for the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in 1984 and served as Chief Judge for the Fourth Circuit from 1996 to 2003. Judge Wilkinson is author of Harry Byrd and the Changing Face of Virginia Politics (1968), Serving Justice: A Supreme Court Clerk’s View (1974), From Brown to Bakke: The Supreme Court and School Integration (1979), One Nation Indivisible: How Ethnic Separatism Threatens America (1997), and Cosmic Constitutional Theory (2012). He was a member of the Board of the Federal Judicial Center from 1992 to 1996 and is presently a member of the Virginia Bar and the American Law Institute.