Appellate Brief Preparation Checklist
A Preservation Register that traces every candidate issue to four places in the record, plus the standard of review note and word budget it produces.
Free download · No account needed
Havenbrook Mills v. Sarrenden Logistics · Preservation Register
Every candidate issue, and the four places the record has to put it
Rows from a fictional carriage-contract appeal. Havenbrook lost a nine-day jury verdict and appellate counsel did not try the case.
| # | Issue | Where raised | Ground stated then | Ground argued now | State | Review |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | Construction of the indemnity clause | DE 71, III 1,006 | Does not reach their own negligence | Same | On the ground now argued | No deference |
| 7 | Sufficiency on consequential damages | III 1,004, DE 188 | No foreseeability at contracting | Same | On the ground now argued | No deference |
| 11 | Admission of the reconstructed load records | DE 133 | No foundation, made for litigation | Same | Definitive pretrial ruling | Abuse of discretion |
| 4 | Sarrenden’s damages expert methodology | IV 1,203 | Witness is not qualified | Method is unreliable | On a different ground | Plain error at best |
| 2 | Admission of the delivery logs | II 288 | Foundation | Hearsay | On a different ground | Plain error at best |
| 1 | Closing-argument references to insurance | Nowhere | None stated | Collateral source | Never raised below | Plain error at best |
Rows 4 and 2 are the reason this column has four values
Counsel objected in both, on the record, and the court ruled. A preserved or not preserved column books both as preserved. The ground stated at the time is not the ground the brief is about to argue, which is a fact about two lines of transcript and nothing about how strong either argument is.
| State | Issues | What it decides |
|---|---|---|
| Preserved on the ground now argued | 5 | Keeps whatever standard the kind of question attracts |
| Preserved, on a different ground | 3 | Plain error at best, and every checklist calls it preserved |
| Preserved by a definitive pretrial ruling | 2 | Nothing had to be renewed at trial |
| Never raised below | 4 | Plain error at best, and all four came from the client |
| Every candidate | 14 | The four states add to the candidate count, which is the sheet’s only test |
Seven keep an ordinary standard of review. Seven are on plain error at best, and three of those seven had an objection on the record.
Appellate counsel who did not try the case arrives holding a transcript and a client's list of grievances, and the two overlap less than anyone expects. So preservation here is a four-state column rather than a checkbox. A party claiming error in admitted evidence had to state the specific ground, and a party objecting to a jury instruction had to state the grounds distinctly. An objection on some other basis reads as preserved on every checklist and carries nothing.
Havenbrook Mills v. Sarrenden Logistics is the appeal worked through here. Nine trial days leave 1,847 transcript pages and fourteen candidate issues. Five were preserved on the ground now argued, three on a different ground, two by a definitive pretrial ruling, and four never raised at all. Of the six issues the client raised, one survives to the brief. Of the three found only by reading the record, two do, and one of those is the largest section in it.
A principal brief is acceptable at no more than 13,000 words, so the register is also what divides them. Fixed sections take 4,200 and the remaining 8,800 go by standard of review, which puts 800 on the closing-argument issue that comes up on every client call. The same discipline runs through the motion in limine pack before trial, the case fact and evidence register underneath both, and filing compliance once the brief is written.
What's in the pack
Preservation Register
One row per candidate issue, four record coordinates, and one of four states instead of a column that says yes or no.
Record Citation Index
Every record cite checked against the page it names, with the three failure kinds counted apart because each has a different fix.
Word Budget
The limit less the fixed sections, divided by standard of review, and the dropped issues written down with the row that explains each one.
Standard of Review Note
Two sentences an issue: what the panel is asked to conclude, and the point at which the deference runs out.
Issue Statements
One per briefed issue, under fifty words, each checked back against the register row that says what the record actually preserved.
Statement of the Case
A cite on every factual sentence, the unfavourable facts included, and each ruling presented for review named and paged.
What the Record Has to Show
The volume table, the docket entries that matter, and the two passages worth reading out of order before anything else.
How to use it
- 1
Open in River, or take it blank
Hand River the transcript volumes, the docket, the order appealed from and the client's list, or take the Word documents and CSV sheets from the template library.
- 2
Map the record, then read two passages
Volume table first, so the reading is finite. Then the charge conference and the Rule 50 motions in full and out of order, because that is where preservation concentrates.
- 3
Give every issue four record cites
Where it was raised, the ground actually stated, where the court ruled, and where the harm shows. A state without a cite is an opinion, so the row moves to never raised.
- 4
Let the register set the word budget
Preservation decides the standard of review, the standard decides what an issue is worth, and the dropped issues get written down with the reason beside them.
Frequently asked questions
Is this free?
The download is free and needs no account. Edit with AI creates a free River account and installs the same pack as a private space with the agent primed to work through your record. Both buttons point at the same pack, and the free download is the complete one.
What format are the downloaded files?
Documents come as .docx and sheets as .csv, so they open in Word, Pages, Google Docs, Excel, Numbers and Sheets with no conversion. Add ?format=pdf to the download link for read-only PDFs. Sheets stay .csv either way, because a spreadsheet flattened to PDF stops being a spreadsheet.
What does Edit with AI actually do?
It reads the transcript volumes, the docket and the orders you upload, builds the volume map, and fills the Preservation Register row by row with a volume and page on every state. It quotes the ground counsel stated rather than summarising it, because a summary drifts toward the argument.
Why four preservation states instead of preserved and not preserved?
Because the third one is where appeals lose issues everybody thought they had. Counsel objected and the court ruled, so a binary column says preserved, and the ground stated at the time is not the ground the brief argues. Three of fourteen candidates sat there in the worked appeal.
Does it tell me my chances on appeal?
No, and that is deliberate. No number here is a probability of reversal. The Standard of Review Note says in words what a standard does to an issue, and the word budget records what each one was worth. Both are more useful than a percentage nobody can support.
Does the word budget account for my circuit's own rules?
It starts from the federal limit and tells you to check the local one, because circuits set their own and appendix requirements differ most. The Seventh Circuit's practitioner handbook, for one, requires a short appendix bound with the brief plus a certificate that it is complete.
Can I use this alongside the trial-stage packs?
Yes, and the evidentiary rows line up. A definitive in limine ruling logged in the motion and brief drafting pack becomes a preserved row here without anybody renewing anything, which is exactly why that tracker sorts on definitive rather than granted.