This summer marks the 30th anniversary of our joint authorship
of the Appellate Practice column, as well as Thomas
Newman's 44th year as its author. At these milestones, we
reflect on the evolution of New York appellate practice over the
past three decades, focusing on technological advancements and
efforts to reduce appellate court backlogs and delays.
Thirty years ago, electronic legal research was still a novelty.
Law firms maintained extensive libraries of print-based case
reporter volumes and other primary and secondary research
materials. Law librarians served as the conduit to these print
publications for the legions of associates who scoured them and
weekly advance sheets searching for that elusive case in point.
Decisions were manually "Shepardized" through
Shepard's Citation Service to locate any negative subsequent
history. This was an arduous, time-consuming process that ran the
risk of incomplete results even for the most skilled
researchers.
