'2023 Appellate Writing Workshop' offered

Presented in partnership by the Criminal Defense Resource Center of the State Appellate Defender Office and the Michigan Appellate Assigned Counsel System, the “2023 Appellate Writing Workshop” will take place Thursday through Saturday, April 27-29, at the Detroit offices of SADO, 3031 W. Grand Blvd., Suite 450.

MAACS roster attorneys and SADO assistant defenders are invited to attend this in-person, 3-day writing workshop designed for criminal appellate attorneys. Working on either a mock case file or a case from their own caseload, attendees will learn practical tools and develop critical skills to improve their writing. Attendees will learn how to develop a compelling statement of facts, identify persuasive legal issues, and improve oral advocacy skills. This workshop offers a mix of plenary, panel, and small group brainstorming and writing sessions.

Topics to be covered include:
• Voices and Perspectives of Appellate Clients
• Using Facts to Tell Your Client’s Story and to Develop a Case Theory
• Brainstorming the Facts
• Issue Spotting Strategies and Techniques
• Issue Identification and Development
• Pen to Paper: Drafting the Statement of Facts
• Extending the Theory of Your Case
• Practical Oral Advocacy Tips and Demonstration

Speaking at the workshop will be Marilena David, Brad Hall, and Kathy Swedlow.

David is the deputy director at SADO. She also manages Project Reentry, a program she launched that is focused on supporting people on their journey home from prison. David represents individuals on appeal of their felony convictions and individuals who are being resentenced after serving unconstitutional juvenile life without parole sentences. She served as manager of SADO’s Criminal Defense Resource Center from 2015-2022. Previously, she launched and managed SADO’s Crime Lab Unit, a federal grant funded unit tasked with analyzing the impact of potentially faulty Detroit Crime Lab evidence on criminal convictions following the shocking 2008 Detroit Crime Lab closure.

David serves on the Board of Directors for the Criminal Defense Attorneys of Michigan and the Michigan Appellate Bench Bar Conference Foundation. She is past chair of the State Bar of Michigan’s Prisons & Corrections Section. She serves on the National Association for Public Defense Core Well-Being Committee and contributes to developing and implementing national standards for public defense sustainability.

Hall is the MAACS administrator. He graduated from Michigan State University before working as a youth treatment specialist at a residential facility. He then attended Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law, where he spent his summers doing unpaid death penalty defense work in Georgia, Alabama, and Illinois. After returning to Michigan, Hall worked as a federal judicial law clerk and then as a federal public defender for eight years. Since 2015, he has overseen Michigan’s private appellate indigent defense system, including many meaningful reforms and an expansion to youth defense.

Hall maintains an active client caseload and has briefed and argued several significant cases in the Michigan Supreme Court and Michigan Court of Appeals, one of which was awarded a Distinguished Brief Award by Western Michigan University Cooley Law School. He has also authored numerous scholarly articles. Hall is active in the legal community and is past chair of the State Bar of Michigan Appellate Practice Section.

Swedlow is the manager of SADO’s Criminal Defense Resource Center (CDRC) and is the former deputy administrator of MAACS. From 2000-2016, she was a professor and assistant dean at WMU-Cooley where she taught Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure, and Death Penalty Law. While at Cooley, Swedlow served as the co-director of the school’s Innocence Project and was co-counsel on the Project’s first DNA exoneration case, People v Wyniemko. Before that, she was an assistant federal defender with the Capital Habeas Unit of the Defender Association of Philadelphia, where she represented death row prisoners in Pennsylvania. She has also worked in the Staff Attorneys’ Offices in the U.S. Courts of Appeal for the Second, Third, and Sixth Circuits.

Swedlow is the author of the SADO Defender Appellate Manual (2021), three law school criminal law and procedure textbooks, and many law review articles. For many years, she was a contributing editor for death penalty cases for the ABA publication, “Preview of United States Supreme Court Cases.” She is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University and City University of New York School of Law.

The workshop is free for court-appointed appellate lawyers. Lunch will be provided each day. CLE credit is available up to 22.25 hours. To register, visit https://sado.org and click on “Upcoming Events.”

Anyone with questions may contact Kathy Swedlow at kswedlow@sado.org or call 517-492-5848.