The practice of appellate law retains much of the formality and gravity that has historically permeated our profession.  From the sober writing required for an appellate brief to the pageantry of oral argument, there can be little opportunity to interact with our appellate jurists as the fine individuals that they are.

To break through this barrier, we have developed a new video series we are calling “Ask the Judge.”  Smith Moore Leatherwood’s own Sidney S. Eagles, former Chief Judge of the North Carolina Court of Appeals, sat down with me for a wide-ranging “behind the scenes” interview.  Judge Eagles provides his invaluable insights into how appellate judges decide cases, how appeals make their way through our appellate courts, and the hiring and daily work of law clerks, among many other topics.

We will be providing bite-size clips from the interviews on a regular basis in the coming weeks and months.

With law clerk-hiring season approaching, we thought we would kick off the Ask the Judge series with Judge Eagles’s insights into the clerkship application process, what judges are looking for in their law clerks, and the special and lifelong relationship that develops between a law clerk and her judge.

To start, Judge Eagles provided his thoughts on how he would find a law clerk that was right for him.