If you have lost your case before a court or tribunal you may be considering appealing (or, if you have won, your opponent might appeal).

It is not as easy to win an appeal as it might at first appear. This is because, in general, the appeal court will not, at least not initially, have a complete, re-trial hearing all the witnesses and argument again. The appeal court will be reviewing the lower court’s decision to see whether something has gone wrong, whether the lower court’s decision shows that it misunderstood the law  or made a finding of fact for which there was no evidence, for example. But the appeal court will not itself hear the witnesses so it will be reluctant to second-guess the lower court’s impression of the reliability and truthfulness of witnesses.

If you have won and the other side is appealing, you have no choice but to respond, but if you have lost and are considering appealing, you should immediately seek advice from a barrister. Normally the best barrister to advise you whether you have grounds to appeal, and on the chances of success, will be the barrister who represented you in the lower court because he will be familiar with the details of the case. If you prefer to instruct another barrister to advise you, you can, but  (1) the new barrister’s fee to advise you will inevitably be higher because he will need to read all the papers to become familiar with the case (2) the time limit for appealing is generally very short so you need to contact your chosen barrister straight away – preferably within 48 hours of the decision you are considering appealing against – and you need to be sure that you can get all the papers  to that new barrister promptly.

If, up to now, you have been represented by solicitors, you can either ask your solicitor to instruct your chosen barrister to advise, or you can contact your chosen barrister direct (if the barrister accepts direct access instructions which about 50% of civil barristers do) but if you are instructing the barrister direct you need to ensure that you have (or can quickly obtain from your former solicitors) all the papers.

This page was lasted updated in December 2011. Disclaimer