Good mentors make the world go ’round.

In my career, I’ve been fortunate to have a number of attorneys to look up to. Ranging from supervisors to the judges I worked for, I’m a better lawyer because of them. They took the time to teach and to emulate how to practice law the right way. Although I appreciate them, I can say that I am still triggered by blue felt tip pen edits from my days as a clerk 😉

Mentorship is important. It’s one of the perks of being a Virginia lawyer: other attorneys tend to be very generous with their time. If you want to improve, go watch some of the good ones. Better yet, take them to lunch!

Norman Thomas and Steve Emmert both had established appellate practices when I launched my firm after leaving government service. Both have been incredibly kind, sharing words of wisdom, advice on complicated cases, and even business development strategy. I’ve been lucky enough to count them as true mentors. In this second installment of what I’m calling “Courtroom Conversations,” I reached out to Norman, who generously agreed to this latest blog post. 

Here you can find Norman’s blog. Anyone want to volunteer as tribute to take his place as my first call when things go south? No takers? 

Without further ado…

Rachel: Welcome to the blog, Norman! I used to love Gail Collins’s blog with Brett Stephens in the NY Times where they would do a fun back-and-forth. Your retirement has given me the great excuse to do this again.

Norman: Rachel, I am happy to work with you to create a blog conversation!  Hopefully, our conversation will be helpful to other appellate practitioners.  Deciding to retire from my solo appellate law practice was a tough decision to make and took about 15 months to accomplish – but it was the right decision at the right time for me.

Rachel: The “Appellate Guild” (as Steve Emmert coined us) will certainly miss you. What will you miss most? And the answer can certainly be: “nothing!” because you’ll be on the golf course living your best life.

Norman: The answer is an easy one for me; but sadly, I’m not a golfer.  I will miss the professional friendships that I’ve made with fellow appellate practitioners and trial attorneys throughout Virginia (and beyond); the interaction with clients who have entrusted me with their appellate representation; and my association with Virginia’s and the Fourth Circuit’s jurists before whom I have practiced in the twelve years since I founded my law firm.  I also will miss the challenges and rewards of appellate litigation.

Rachel: I am not a golfer either, but I’ve taken up pickleball and really enjoy it. I need a little bit more action in a sport. But before all of the golfers come at me, know that I am rationalizing the fact that I’m terrible at it. Let’s all follow our talents!

As for friendships: how lucky are we to have such a great group of colleagues? I love having cases against other appellate specialists. First, we respect each other. Second, we tend to be reasonable about extensions, etc. And third, having a case against another excellent lawyer always keeps me at the top of my game. Do you have any favorite cases or opinions from your career? Appeals don’t make for great war stories as we tend to get excited about things like Rule 1:1 and procedural defaults…which others don’t enjoy quite as much.

Norman: We indeed are fortunate to have a collegial and highly competent appellate bar in Virginia.  My favorite cases?  Those that I won, of course!  I will confine myself here to a handful of decisions in which I served as appellants’ counsel.  In the Virginia Supreme Court, two of my favorites are A.R.A. v. Commonwealth, 295 Va. 153 (2018)(expungement of criminal charges) and Taylor v. AIDS-Hilfe Kohn, e.V., 301 Va. 352 (2022)(issues arising under the Uniform Foreign-Country Money Judgments Recognition Act).  In the Virginia Court of Appeals, I especially like Burkholder v. Palisades Park Owners Association, 76 Va. App. 577 (2022)(defining lot owner rights under the Va. Property Owners’ Association Act).  In the Fourth Circuit, I am proud of the outcome in Mountain Valley Pipeline, LLC v. 8.37 Acres of Land, 101 F. 4th 350 (4th Cir. 2024), reh. denied 2024 U.S. App. LEXIS 14176 (4th Cir. June 11, 2024)(landowner rights in Natural Gas Act condemnations).  In each of these appeals I represented true “underdogs” and the reversals in each benefited my clients in significant ways.

Rachel: We love an underdog moment. What’s your best advice for new attorneys starting out? 

Norman: For new attorneys interested in appellate litigation practice, I offer just a bit of advice.  Understand that there is no “one path” to appellate practice; there are many.  If you are interested, then endeavor to stay interested as your career progresses.  Opportunities may come early or late.  My interest in appellate litigation began in law school with my participation in the 1980 National Moot Court Tournament.  For years thereafter my career experiences in appellate litigation were limited; yet I treasured them.  I was a thirty-three year practitioner when I founded my law firm to practice appellate law full time.  Bottom line: if you have a dream, hold on to it.  I also encourage new attorneys (of any form of law practice) to work diligently at improving your legal writing skills.  Some are gifted in that regard, especially those with strong educational backgrounds in English writing.  Others, myself included, must work intentionally to improve over a course of years.  Strive to get better and you will do so.  Finally, make every effort to enjoy your legal career.  The years fly by.  Before you know it the time to retire is nigh.  

Rachel: Do you have any favorite writing tips? I always recommend reading as much as possible: fiction, non-fiction, whatever inspires you. I’ve been waking up early and reading books on writing to get inspired. My favorite non-legal writing book to recommend is Stephen King’s “On Writing.” It’s an easy read and he has a fascinating story. 

Norman: I agree that reading a wide variety of literature should improve one’s ability to write well.  I recommend The Elements of Style by William Strunk, Jr., and E. B. White as a good writing-skills resource.  (Any edition of it will do nicely.)  Several appellate jurists of my acquaintance recommend Brian A. Garner’s text, The Winning Brief: 100 Tips for Persuasive Briefing in Trial and Appellate Courts.  My best legal writing results from my undertaking thoughtful revisions of my initial work.  I often undertake the review-and-revise process more than once.  For a final review I typically will return to a near-final draft the next morning, when I am fresh, to review and revise it as a whole.  Lastly, stay in tune with the Blue Book.  Citation form matters.

Rachel: You can’t go wrong with the classics. Here’s a tough question: if you had to pick one, do you prefer oral argument or writing? I know my answer. I really enjoy both but have a love-hate relationship with oral argument because of the stress involved. On the other hand, I’m such an extrovert that being in Court is really fun. I get to see friends, the judges, court staff, clients, etc. There’s no greater high than when oral argument goes well. But brief-writing for me is a steadier, quiet, thoughtful process that is the perfect counterpart to the rollercoaster of argument. The biggest downside to briefing is that there is such a long lag before an argument. You don’t get immediate feedback from judges. By contrast, with argument, you instantly know how it went (even if you don’t know the outcome of the case). You can leave court with the satisfaction of knowing you prepared adequately, you gave the best responses you could, the judges understood your points, etc. 

Norman: I’m somewhat practical here, viewing all component parts of litigating an appeal as part of the job.  Each part or phase of an appeal can be interesting and challenging, and each can be a bit tedious, too.  But since you want me to choose, I’ll go with oral argument. Typically after many hours of preparation, oral argument is exciting, unpredictable, and puts my forensic skills to the test.  I encourage my clients (and, if they are on brief with me, trial counsel) to attend oral argument.  I enjoy spending that  time with them and they see for themselves the justices’ or judges’ areas of interest and concern.  It always is nice to see colleagues and old friends who have cases on the docket. 

Rachel: I was recently talking to an aspiring law student about studying. Oliver, my new colleague, and I each said how much fun we thought it would be to just study. But really appeals (and perhaps being a law professor) are as close to that as you can get. How lucky are we? And it made me think: if you hadn’t become a lawyer, what would you have loved to do?

Norman: What an interesting question.  My parents raised me to look ahead to attending college.  At the same time, they asked me to do so with goals in mind.  As a tenth-grader I decided I wanted to be a lawyer, adopted that goal, and the rest is history.  If I had not become a lawyer, I suppose there are two possibilities.  One, I may have followed in my father’s footsteps and worked for the Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Company.  I worked there as a residential installation and repair technician each summer and winter break from the time I graduated high school until I entered my second year of law school.  With a college degree I may well have been eligible for a first-level supervisory position with that company.  The other possibility would have been to obtain a Master’s degree in Public Administration and find work with a city or county government.  As an undergraduate I developed a passion for state and local government, including its management and finances.  My thirty years’ experience in public sector law at the state and local levels attest to that passion.

Rachel: I’m so impressed with people like you who knew what they wanted to do so early in life. I knew I enjoyed reading and writing and I was torn between getting a PhD in history and law school. In the end, I picked law school in part because my grumpy history assistant professor advised that there was no funding for tenured history professors anymore and he wished he had never gone to graduate school. Maybe I asked the wrong person at the wrong time… but I’m glad I ended up where I did. Change of topic but if you could wave a magic wand and change one thing about appeals or about our court system more broadly, what would it be?

Norman:  One thing?  Ok, well, I write the following with utmost respect and a measure of confidence that numerous other appellate practitioners share my perceptions of our judiciary.  I do not intend to create controversy.  I would have our Supreme Court focus more on error correction along with the modern emphasis on development of Virginia law.  An appeal need not be of great significance to the law’s development to be of genuine merit for correction of lower court error.  (For example, in my most recent writ panel argument a justice asked me if my clients’ appeal was “important enough” for the Supreme Court to hear.)   Reading Article VI of Virginia’s Constitution in relation to such statutes as Code Sections 8.01-678, 8.01-680 and especially 8.01-681 convinces me that the General Assembly had error correction in mind when legislating as to appellate jurisdiction.  

Rachel: I agree with this. I know the Supreme Court has a limited bandwidth, but granting more appeals would be helpful. I am going to say something unexpected (for me). And I will preface this by saying that I love a good procedural default as much as the next appellate lawyer, but . . . I think we can sometimes be too strict with preservation and default requirements in Virginia. 

I’ve taken up a lot of your valuable time–time that you could be using to learn to play pickleball with me–so I’ll wrap this up. For those who don’t know, Norman (and Steve Emmert) were instrumental in helping me start my appellate firm. So let me take this opportunity to publicly thank you. Any parting words?

Norman: I have enjoyed our public conversation and appreciate the opportunity to have it with you.  I will miss my appellate law practice.  I am thankful for all that it has brought to me; especially for the clients who put their trust in me, the referring attorneys, and the many friends I’ve made.  I am forever grateful to Steve Emmert, who encouraged me from the beginning and referred clients to me over the past several years.  But the time for my semi-retirement has come.  My own blog explains how I arrived at my decision and the next steps of my career.  See www.normanthomaslaw.com.  I am enjoying my mediation practice with Juridical Solutions.  I wish you and all of our appellate litigation colleagues the very best in the future.