One of the most difficult goals for an Alabama appellate attorney to accomplish is having the Alabama Supreme Court grant certiorari review of a ruling of the Alabama Court of Civil Appeals. Certiorari review by the Supreme Court is available pursuant to Rule 39, Ala.R.App.P. However, the procedures established by Rule 39, which has been substantially amended several times, have a long history of being difficult for practitioners to fully comply with. When I served as a law clerk and then staff attorney to several justices on the Supreme Court from 1993 to 1998, almost every certiorari petition that came across my desk for review and recommendation to the justice I worked for could have been denied based on procedural noncompliance alone. While minor…![]()
