Advanced Topics in Appellate Practice: The Path to Mastery

Charles Bird served his law school—U.C. Davis’s Martin Luther King Hall—as one of three executive law review editors and on the national moot court team. He clerked for Robert Boochever, then of the Alaska Supreme Court and later of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Bird fell in love with the appellate process. He and his wife, Charlotte, fell in love with northern wilderness and getting about in it on foot, on skis, and by canoe.

Returning to California for career, Bird found the market and law firms inhospitable to a neophyte looking for appeals. He apprenticed in complex business litigation, then built a practice in real estate litigation. In 1987, the Birds took a sabbatical in the Alaska back country. Charles reinvented himself as an appellate lawyer, and Charlotte became a professional artist.

From a San Diego base, Bird built a national practice. This was recognized by induction into the California Academy of Appellate Lawyers and the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers. He became president of each. His amicus briefs for the academies have been cited by the supreme courts of California and the United States.

Sample Chapter – Advanced Topics in Appellate Practice