Upon Further Review

Howard Bashman.

Did you know that there's a growing and thriving community of lawyers, judges, law professors, and journalists on Twitter who are interested in and who cover news relating to appellate practice and the most recent noteworthy appellate court rulings? If not, then you should head to Twitter and search for the hashtag #AppellateTwitter.

I realize that Twitter has not only advantages but numerous potential disadvantages, that some older people may be uncomfortable with this sort of technology, and that for today's youth Twitter has long been passé. And don't even get me started about how some politicians cannot resist using Twitter to rant and rave about the very latest thing that has made them perturbed.

Yet just as Twitter surely isn't all good, it likewise isn't all bad either. In particular, if you are an appellate practitioner or just someone who is interested in appellate practice and appellate court rulings, I highly recommend to you the #AppellateTwitter community, which has been and hopefully will continue to be a welcoming, supportive, and often quite interesting place to participate or even just observe. There are no formal criteria to join. As participants have observed, #AppellateTwitter is essentially a state of mind.

I joined Twitter back in May 2012 to ensure that my "How Appealing" blog had a presence there, and my Twitter feed (@howappealing) consists mainly of tweets announcing the appearance of new posts at my appellate blog. Another essential Twitter account for those who are interested in news coverage of appellate courts, new appellate court rulings and appellate practice in general is Michelle Olsen's @AppellateDaily.

Before I inundate you with a bunch more noteworthy appellate-related Twitter feeds that you should be following, let me say a few more things to those readers who are not now on Twitter and who know little to nothing about how that social media network operates. The most important thing to know is that you do not need your own Twitter account to see and read the posts of Twitter users who have public Twitter feeds.

Anyone can just open a web browser and then either search for or type in the username of a Twitter account right after the forward slash that follows the twitter.com website to access the postings of any Twitter feed whose posts are public. And you can search on Twitter for the #AppellateTwitter hashtag to find potentially pertinent posts from others whose feeds you are not reading or following. While there are advantages (and no doubt disadvantages) to having your own Twitter account, if you don't already have an account, I highly recommend lurking in the #AppellateTwitter community for a while before deciding whether to open an account and actively participate to see whether it's something you might enjoy or benefit from doing.

In my experience, the participants in the #AppellateTwitter community fall into approximately six categories. In the first category, most obviously, are the appellate lawyers. This category features a wide variety of experience and skill levels, ranging from some participants who have argued numerous times in the U.S. Supreme Court to those who are looking forward to or hoping someday to have their first oral argument in a local federal or state appellate court.

The second category on my list consists of appellate judges who are on Twitter. This category almost exclusively consists of state court jurists who serve either on the highest court or an intermediate appellate court of their state. At last month's 2019 Appellate Judges Education Institute Summit in Washington, D.C., I attended an #AppellateTwitter cocktail party at which at least six state court appellate judges were present representing (in alphabetical order) Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Maryland, Texas and West Virginia.

If you want to see examples of appellate judges on Twitter, I recommend visiting the following accounts: @JudgeDillard, @dnazarian, @jenperkinsaz, @JusticeGuzman, @bethwalkr, @JudgeRhondaWood. There may even be a current Pennsylvania Superior Court judge who has a Twitter account, and I know of at least two federal appellate judges who are on Twitter.

In addition to appellate judges who are on Twitter, so are many state appellate courts. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has its own Twitter feed (@SupremeCtofPA), and following that feed is, in my opinion, the best way to keep up with important developments in that court. That's because Pennsylvania's highest court always sends a tweet announcing every new grant of discretionary review and the issuance of every new opinion.

Also worthwhile is following the Twitter feed of this newspaper (@thelegalintel) and of its reporters who cover the appellate courts. Fun fact: Twitter links to The Legal Intelligencer articles allow you to access the full text of those articles without needing an online account.

Which leads me to my third category of must follows—on #AppellateTwitter—journalists who cover appellate courts. Nearly every journalist and commentator covering the U.S. Supreme Court for a major news outlet has a Twitter feed, and it is often the first place you can learn about how the Justices reacted to the oral arguments of major cases.

Bloomberg Law's Kimberly S. Robinson (@KimberlyRobinsn) is frequently the first person to note in her tweets the U.S. Supreme Court's grants and denials of review and newly issued opinions. Reporters Zoe Tillman of BuzzFeed News (@ZoeTillman, currently on maternity leave), Josh Gerstein of Politico (@joshgerstein) and Mike Scarcella of The National Law Journal (@MikeScarcella) are frequently the first to announce the issuance of major appellate court rulings from across the nation.

Let me quickly note the remaining three categories of #AppellateTwitter participants whose contributions I find valuable: appellate court clerks of court and law clerks; law professors and legal writing instructors; and law students interested in appellate law. Blake A. Hawthorne, the Clerk of the Texas Supreme Court, has written the book on having an invaluable Twitter feed as the lead staffperson serving on an appellate court at his @blakeahawthorne account. And if you are interested in Fourth Amendment law, law professor Orin S. Kerr's Twitter feed (@OrinKerr) should be a must read for you.

To be sure, the #AppellateTwitter community has had a few unfortunate and uncomfortable moments over the years, as one would expect from any online discussion forum that is open to public view and participation. Nevertheless, on balance, I have found the #AppellateTwitter community to be a positive, worthwhile and genuinely constructive community. If you haven't done so yet, you should definitely take a look and decide for yourself.

Howard J. Bashman operates his own appellate litigation boutique in Willow Grove and can be reached at 215-830-1458 and via email at [email protected]. You can access his appellate Web log at http://howappealing.law.com/ and via Twitter @howappealing.