If you’ve been practicing in North Carolina long enough, you have undoubtedly encountered this fact pattern:
Normally, an appellate court will “limit appellate review to issues raised by the parties because those legal issues are joined after full adversarial briefing.” The Supreme Court of North Carolina has cautioned that “[a]ddressing issues that the parties never raised,
Governor Stein signed a state budget into law today, triggering happy headlines about teacher pay and investments in community colleges, amidst debates over a number of other provisions. Tweaks to our appellate system tend not to make the front page,
Registration for the best national appellate CLE program is now open.
Here’s the link: https://judges.org/appellate judges edu/about-ajei. You need to be there.
The AJEI Summit will be held November 12-15, 2026, in Philadelphia.
Speakers and presenters include Dean Erwin Chemerinsky,
Petitions for a writ of certiorari, particularly in criminal cases, are no stranger to this blog. But this week’s opinions from the Court of Appeals include a case that is worth discussing.
State v. Dade concerned North Carolina’s implied-consent offenses
North Carolina’s appellate lawyers enjoyed an hour chock-full of insights from Justice Dietz and Chief Judge Dillon this morning during the NCBA’s annual appellate-practice CLE. Did you miss it? Here are some highlights.
Motions to Dismiss Appeals
Both the
Suppose the Supreme Court of North Carolina jettisoned In re Civil Penalty—the case requiring panels of the Court of Appeals to treat earlier Court of Appeals panel opinions as binding precedent. What system would take its place?
This is
On March 20, the Supreme Court issued an opinion in In re N.M.W., No. 159PA25, 2026 WL 796105 (N.C. Mar. 20, 2026). But as many of you know, I’m not here to discuss the holding or outcome of that case.
North Carolina appellate practitioners may want to sit down before reading this. Actually, maybe stand up—because you might need to spring into action sooner than you think.
The North Carolina Supreme Court appears to be running a tighter schedule for
Sometimes you fall headlong into a chorus you thought you knew by heart—only to discover the bridge is where all the action is. For appellate practitioners, that action seems to be happening more and more in orders issued by the
