Several reasons prompt clients who want to win on appeal to hire an appellate specialist.

1. Experience. Appellate rules, procedures, and issues differ from trial court rules, procedures, and issues. Hence, clients benefit by hiring an appellate specialist who has already mastered the nuances of appellate practice. Retaining an appellate specialist will protect the client from the problems that can spell doom on appeal-e.g., a late notice of appeal, an inadequate record, appealing from a non-appealable order, or sanctions for taking a frivolous appeal.
   
   
2. Writing skills. Because over 90% of appellate cases are decided on the briefs (not at oral argument), clients benefit by retaining an appellate specialist who can think like a lawyer and write like a writer. By the time of oral argument, California appellate courts already have an Opinion drafted. Hence, changing the Court's position at oral argument is difficult. The determinant of the outcome is an effective brief. Because appeals are "basically decided on briefs . . .if you can't write, you can't win . . . ." Hon. William Stein of the California Court of Appeal, quoted in Quibell, "Mass Appeal," The Recorder (May 21, 1997).
   
   
3. Respect. Appellate judges, opposing counsel, and mediators are more likely to respect and listen to an experienced appellate specialist.
   
   
4. Settlement. Mediations are more likely to achieve settlement if the client retains an appellate specialist who can explain to the client, the mediator, and opposing counsel the rules and standards by which the Court of Appeal would likely decide the case.
   
   
5. The appellate perspective. Counsel familiar with appellate practice can present the case according to the perspective of the Court of Appeal, which differs from the trial court perspective: "Appellate work is most assuredly not the recycling of trial level points and authorities." In re Marriage of Shaban (2001) 88 Cal.App.4th 398, 408. The advantage that an appellate specialist has over a trial attorney in representing a client on appeal was noted by one appellate court: "[T]rial attorneys who prosecute their own appeals . . . may have `tunnel vision.' Having tried the case themselves, they become convinced of the merits of their cause. They may lose objectivity and would be well served by consulting and taking the advice of disinterested members of the bar, schooled in appellate practice. We suspect that had appellant done so they would have advised him not to pursue this appeal." Estate of Gilkison (1998) 65 Cal.App.4th 1443, 1449-1450.
   
   
6. Oral argument. Argument on appeal focuses primarily on legal rules governing three issues: waiver (whether the issue was properly presented for a trial court ruling on the record), error (whether the ruling was correct in light of the scope of the trial court's discretion and the standard of review), and prejudice (if the ruling had gone the other way, would a result more favorable to the appellant have been probable?). Thus, the focus on appeal is significantly different from the focus at trial, which is primarily on the facts and the emotions that facts can generate. As Chief Justice Ronald George of the California Supreme Court has said, "[E]motional arguments of the type designed to sway a jury generally leave us quite cold, so does the sigh of counsel approaching the bench, clutching a script from which counsel does not dare look up." Sherman, "Chief Justice of California," Verdict 8, 12 (2d Qtr. 1997).