Appellate Advocacy

This class is focused on practical skills and is designed to prepare you for and help you excel in the 2025 Sherman Minton Moot Court competition or other moot court competitions. Registration for this course is required for participation in the Sherman Minton Competition. This course is for all 2Ls; 3Ls and graduate students require the advance permission of Professor McFadden.

Although appellate argument provides our frame, the skills that this course teaches presenting complex facts and ideas to an audience confidently and concisely are those used daily by lawyers in many types of practice. Jury trials, motion hearings, city-council debates, administrative hearings, and presentations to boards of directors will all draw on this same skillset. The course focuses on oral advocacy, but we will spend several weeks preparing you to write an appellate brief, by extending the persuasive brief-writing techniques you began to learn in LRW. We will examine the essential components of the appellate brief and learn how to structure a written argument when no single binding authority establishes the governing legal rule. We will discuss appellate standards of review, a more flexible approach to CREAC structure, and other theoretical issues associated with authoring an appellate brief.

The course is taught as a combination of asynchronous video and live lectures. For the live-lecture class sessions, you may enroll in either of the two sections that are offered. You will deliver two oral arguments (one on Zoom and one in-person). There is no final exam. Attendance will be required.

Please contact Prof. Lane McFadden (lanemcfa@indiana.edu) with any questions. (Pass/Fail)