Legal Question in Appeals and Writs in Kentucky

We are involved in a civil lawsuit which is about to be appealed in Kentucky. The "Notice of Appeal" has been filed today. We have just made the decision to retain a new lawyer to handle the rest of our part of this appeal. But we will need some time to search for a new lawyer. When we inform the present attorney that he is being replaced, how many days will we have to locate another attorney, before the appeal process moves forward? Please give information about how this process works, when a party is retaining new legal counsel at the early stage of an appeal process?

Thank you very much for the help.

Russell Black


Asked on 6/30/11, 9:30 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Bryan Gowin Bryan Gowin Attorney at Law

When the notice of appeal is filed, the person appealing has 20 days after that date to file a pre-hearing appeal statement which sets forth the grounds for appeal. Failure to file this document is most likely fatal to your appeal so I would suggest you need to find a new attorney for the appeal as soon as possible (it may be possible to ask for a short continuance, but i would not count on it for this statement). After the pre-hearing statement is filed, the appellate court makes a decision within a month or so on whether to have a settlement conference. That usually occurs within 2 months of filing the appeal. If the case is not settled at that conference, the court clerk has 30 days to send the record from the trial court to the appellate court and then the person filing the appeal usually has 60 days to file their brief. The other party then has 60 days to file their brief then 20 days for the person filing for a reply. Then the court determines if there will be oral argument and if not it stands submitted to the appellate court for decision which can take up to 6 months.

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Answered on 7/01/11, 6:06 am


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