Public Defender Spotlight

Public Defender Spotlight: Emily Merski & Brian McNeil on the Importance of Appellate Resources

March 31, 2025 – Our Public Defender Spotlights shout out and celebrate the achievements of individual members of the PDAP community, whether past or recent. If you’d like to nominate a fellow Public Defender (attorney, social service advocate, investigator, mitigator, or support staff member) for a feature, reach out to Anna@PAPublicDefenders.com.

Supporting public defense means supporting all aspects of public defense. Just as Pennsylvania’s statewide community of Public Defenders is constantly growing and evolving, so are the resources PDAP offers to fit Public Defenders’ needs.

Appellate litigation is unique because it requires a focused approach, with attorneys honing in on specific legal issues rather than the broader case strategy trial attorneys must consider. The structure of appellate work varies across Public Defender offices as well. Some have dedicated appellate divisions, while others rely on trial attorneys to handle appeals alongside their existing caseloads.

“The majority of the cases that go to the Superior Court come from Public Defenders’ offices. We need to be able to do that effectively,” said Emily Merski, a part-time Assistant Public Defender in Erie and Crawford Counties. “The appellate mechanism is huge, and we file hundreds of appeals.”

This led her to develop and coordinate PDAP’s appellate-specific services, alongside Elizabeth Wood-Bennett, PDAP’s Assistant Training Director for Eastern PA.

“Coming in[to a trial skills CLE] as an appellate attorney, to not be able to relate on the same level as the other trial attorneys, I saw the opportunity for [more substantial appellate resources] and the need for this within our community,” she said.

PDAP's Appellate Services

Some of the services that Emily coordinates include virtual appellate meetups, roundtables, and a mooting service. Appellate meetups consist of virtual presentations on assorted topics including case law updates, PCRAs and cross-division collaboration. These are followed by interactive discussions. Virtual roundtables allow appellate practitioners to brainstorm their issues in an informal environment, while the mooting service offers Public Defenders time with experienced practitioners to review their materials and help them prepare to argue their case in court.

“We will essentially mimic an oral argument for you,” Emily said about the process. “You give your presentation, they will pepper you with questions, [which are] sometimes worse than the actual panel, so it’s a really good practice because they may ask you questions that will actually come up in the oral argument.”

The mooting panel has produced a high success rate, with nearly 50% of practitioners going on to win their appeals through vacated or overturned verdicts.

In addition to these virtual services, Emily also coordinates the annual Appellate Academy, a conference that supports both new and experienced attorneys to address statewide appellate issues. The in-person training has featured Superior and Commonwealth Court Judges who give practitioners tips on oral argument and brief writing. The agenda has a different theme every year, with the 2024 Academy including sessions about AI-related issues. Recordings of these sessions are available in the Post-Sentence/Appeals page under PDAP’s Trainings & Resources.

“We do go over the nuts and bolts of filing an appeal, 1925 B statements, filing a notice of appeal, timing, the rules that surround that,” Emily explained when asked about topics the Academy covers. “But we also try to go into the more advanced issues for appellate practitioners who have been doing this for years and years, who just need more enrichment on honing the practice, developing more effective arguments, issue spotting, [etc].”

Hear Emily talk more about PDAP’s appellate services:

Announcing PDAP's Brief Bank

PDAP has also recently added a brief bank to its growing collection of appellate resources. Available through the password-protected Trainings & Resources page, this rapidly growing database allows Public Defenders to share and access briefs on a multitude of topics.

Brian McNeil, a Senior Appellate Public Defender in York County, contributed his own briefs to build out this new resource. He compared PDAP’s brief bank to a previous employer’s internal database, where any employee could access every brief.

“As anyone who’s practiced appeals, particularly in Pennsylvania, can tell you, there are rules, and they are tricky, and there are consequences for failing to follow them to the letter,” Brian explained while speaking about the importance of the brief bank as a knowledge exchange between appellate practitioners.

Brian also acknowledged how county offices with smaller appellate divisions, like his own, could especially benefit from this resource. “For someone like me in an office that is not loaded with appellate people… only so many of the people are going to have expertise in these areas, so sometimes it is great to go outside of that and collaborate with others,” he said, adding that his experience would be very different if he worked in a larger office.

Check out our full conversation with Brian McNeil here:

Encouraging Connections Between Counties

Both Brian and Emily mentioned the importance of cross-county collaboration while discussing PDAP’s appellate services. These resources are designed to connect attorneys across the state, encouraging them to not only share their own expertise but ask questions and connect with their fellow appellate practitioners. An appellate listserv has recently been created for this very reason.

“When you appeal, you have to attack the problem from several sides,” Emily said. “You have to look at the issue and make an argument, not just singularly, but from a few different ways. You have to have a good idea of how you want to approach your argument, the angles you can approach it from, and the way to do that is to learn from other people… and the best way to learn is to have different perspectives.”

“I think collaboration is good for everyone, but it’s particularly good for people in smaller counties who don’t necessarily have a lot of other people to talk to,” Brian said. “And in my experience, anyway, there are very experienced and very conscientious appellate attorneys who are more than happy to answer questions and help people out where necessary.”

You can access all of PDAP’s resources for appellate practitioners by emailing emilymerski@gmail.com or read more on the Additional PDAP Services page. You can also view the brief bank through the password-protected Trainings & Resources section. To contribute briefs to the brief bank, email Elizabeth@PAPublicDefenders.com or any other PDAP staff member. To sign up for the appellate listserv, go to our contact page.

Our mission is to provide tools, strategies, mutual support, training and information to Public Defender Offices in Pennsylvania; to be the voice of public defense in Pennsylvania; and to promote best practices in the leadership, management, and administration of justice in Pennsylvania.