Form for Letters and Emails

Here is a form for letters and emails in support of my candidacy.  Please feel free to modify it.  

In the November 30 runoff election for an open seat on the Court of Appeals, I urge you to vote for Chris McFadden.  He is by far the best qualified candidate.

• Chris wrote the book on Georgia appeals. Literally. He is the first author of McFadden, Brewer & Sheppard’s Georgia Appellate Practice.
• When the state bar polled its members, asking us to state whether the candidates for statewide judicial office of whom we had direct knowledge were well qualified, qualified, or not qualified, Chris received - by a substantial margin - the greatest number of rankings as qualified and well qualified.  The full results are at gabar.org. His practice has focused on appeals for 20 of the 25 years Chris been a lawyer. It is now limited to appeals. He has handled a wide variety of appeals: criminal, civil and domestic.
• Chris has 85 published opinions from the Georgia appellate courts and more experience practicing before the Georgia appellate courts than the other five general-election candidates combined. Support for this is at mcfaddenforappealscourt.com.
• He wrote a part of the Appellate Practice Act, a reform that saves a number of cases each year from being dismissed because of a procedural mistake.
• Chris is a founding past chair of the Appellate Practice Section of the State Bar.
• Through the section and other organizations, Chris has been involved in numerous other efforts to improve Georgia appellate practice. Those efforts include a constitutional amendment that expands the authority of our Supreme Court to answer questions from federal courts about Georgia law. 
• Earlier this summer, Chris drafted the rule that resolved a crisis that arose when the legislature increased the fee for copying appellate records from $1.50 to $10 – per page. That fee increase raised the administrative court costs of routine appeals to tens of thousands of dollars. Working with a coalition of bar leaders, he drafted a proposed rule creating an alternative procedure. The president of the state bar submitted the proposal to the appellate courts, which adapted and adopted it.
• Chris helped the Innocence Project secure the exoneration of Robert Clark, who spent 23 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. 

As to why all of that matters, voters should consider two things: preparation and perspective. As to preparation, Chris has been reading and writing and responding to appellate briefs for twenty years.

But the perspective he would bring to the court is what really distinguishes him. Appellate expertise is plentiful on the Court of Appeals. But most of that expertise was gained from inside a necessarily insular institution. Chris's expertise has been gained over twenty years from the outside, practicing before the court, providing guidance to others practicing before it, and working to make it more accessible.