One of my students wrote this after expressing the desire to become an appellate lawyer and after working in the appellate-practice group at a law firm:

I learned some valuable lessons about appellate practice, and the difference between enjoying something in school and enjoying it in a law-firm setting. The appellate group at the firm was very busy. The partner I worked under was churning out two to three briefs a week. In my final few weeks at that firm, he gave me an opportunity to write a brief completely by myself. It was an eight-page reply brief regarding a mandamus request to stop the discovery of certain documents.

Over the course of the next two weeks, I pored over the trial record, the appellee's brief, and the privileged documents. I enjoyed it just as much as I had enjoyed brief writing in school. But the time pressure was much greater, and the ability to fine tune and perfect my work was much less. In the end, the experience made me realize something critical: Legal writing, on a high level, can be rewarding and interesting, but it can also be utterly draining. I realized why appellate lawyers at law firms are stereotypically labeled as the smartest lawyers at the firm. The fact that they can come to work, day in and day out, and spend hours thinking and writing at such a level makes them nothing less than brilliant, if you ask me.

Hats off to all you appellate lawyers, then.