There is no doubt that appellate proceedings constitute a substantial aspect of Nigeria Judicial process. In the last decade, many more Divisions of the Court of Appeal were established in some other states, thereby ensuring their accessibility to many more litigants. Similarly, many more states have established Customary Courts of Appeal as part of their judicial systems.

The establishment of additional Divisions of the Court of Appeal invariably led to an increase in the number of Judges of the Court. The result of all these is a well-established structure to contend the increased appellate load from lower Courts to the Court of Appeal and Supreme Court. It requires huge experience and expertise for a counsel to conduct an effective appeal. This process involves the ability of counsel to detect errors that were allegedly committed by the lower court, within the context of the relevant appellate rules and couch grounds of appeal that will be accurate in dislodging the decisions of the lower Court on Appeal.

There is therefore the need to highlight the various appellate principles enshrined in the rules of courts as well as decided cases in order to enable counsel on appeal conduct their cases with much more confidence and ease. In 2009, I revised Manual of Brief Writing in the Court of Appeal and Supreme Court, by late Hon. Justice Philip Nnaemeka-Agu. The process resulted in a broader perspective of the principles of effective brief writing. The response of practitioners to the publication was encouraging. There is now less remarks by appellate judges on poor and unacceptable brief Writing. This, to my mind, is partly related to numerous legal literatures on Brief Writing.