Thomas Burns

Board-certified appellate lawyer, former CA11 clerk, alum of @SidleyLaw, @gibsondunn, and @DukeLaw, 🎾 aficionado, 🐕 lover #appellatetwitter

[Thomas Burns @BurnsPA1]

@Jaime_ASantos Congratulations! 🎉🎊🍾🎈 This is such a great result for you and your client, and I didn’t know that heartwarming bit about your backstory until you shared it just now. What a lovely way to come full circle. But we need to know: who won the 🏀 game?…

[Thomas Burns @BurnsPA1]

This might be my last tweet for a while, so I’ll try to make it count. Come find me on threads @ tburns402. Meanwhile, I feel like this movie clip best expresses the #appellatetwitter stampede to what may eventually become #appellatethreads: https://t.co/gzSA7YfJgH

[Thomas Burns @BurnsPA1]

@ItsMattsLaw I think @DavidLat coined the preferred nomenclature years ago: litigatrix.

[Thomas Burns @BurnsPA1]

@LizCGil Slightly off topic: before my 🇹🇷 wife was privately sworn in as a 🇺🇸 citizen, she didn’t know the judge’s honorific. “Should I call him Sir Anthony?” I know him well, so I called his chambers to ask 😂 And that’s why a Tampa federal judge’s clerks sometimes call him Sir Anthony.

[Thomas Burns @BurnsPA1]

@finedr1965 “Flaccid.” That’s what OC called our argument. We won. Senior partner denied my request to email OC and his team to ask whether our argument still felt flaccid.

[Governor JB Pritzker @GovPritzker]

“Whenever I’m about to do something, I think ‘Would an idiot do that?’ and if they would, I do not do that thing.” – Dwight Schrute

And what is the best way to spot an idiot? Look for the person who is cruel.

[Thomas Burns @BurnsPA1]

@domarkus @ErinBurnett @CNN @OutFrontCNN Great interview. And thanks for clarifying that issue about the odds of drawing Judge Cannon given the government’s division selection within SDFL. I hadn’t seen an answer to that anywhere else.

[Thomas Burns @BurnsPA1]

@dmkllr @OrinKerr @rwlesq I know I’ve read at least one published CA11 case that reversed the grant of a Rule 29 motion. What I can’t remember is whether the jury had already returned a guilty verdict before the motion was granted. Does any case hold that’s a distinction that matters?

[Thomas Burns @BurnsPA1]

@basiczilla @finedr1965 You must have looked very lawyerly or trustworthy or both!

[Thomas Burns @BurnsPA1]

@YuhNVious @finedr1965 CA11 OAs in Tampa are very rare. Last sitting here was 4 or 5 years ago. Last one before that was ~15 years ago. Don’t know if CA11 has ever held OA in Orlando, Ocala, or Ft. Myers. But OAs in Jax are very common. CA11 did remote OAs during pandemic, but we’re back in person now.

[Thomas Burns @BurnsPA1]

@finedr1965 Definitely! The MDFL rule allows all lawyers, but nobody else, to bring phones into court. But any other electronic equipment requires a court order.

[Thomas Burns @BurnsPA1]

@finedr1965 A bar card is required if you want to bring your phone into an MDFL courthouse.

[Thomas Burns @BurnsPA1]

@ASFleischman Except when it isn’t! A PD friend rep’d an accused prostitute. When asked to identify defendant, LEO pointed at the PD. Jury 😂 Stunned, prosecutor asked LEO if he was sure. He said yes. Prosecutor dismissed shortly after. PD didn’t know whether to be flattered or relieved.

[Thomas Burns @BurnsPA1]

@LawyerCat_ @Cheyne_Scott I was going to say something similar. The redline is important, but the line-by-line meeting is key. And it’ll save time in the long run. It’d be even better do do it in a gentle Socratic way. E.g., what change did I make here? Why do you think I made it? Is it better? Why? Etc.

[Thomas Burns @BurnsPA1]

@strowhiro But depending on how that morning is going, the ☕️ might make sense without the 🥐!

[Carl Cecere @CecereCarl]

Is so simple even baby understand.

[Thomas Burns @BurnsPA1]

@attorneydad @CecereCarl So what would CA3 do if you mail one paper copy of the brief after 5pm? It’s timely, right? But the court would just issue a deficiency notice and tell you to fix it, right? So I suspect that’d be the emergency workaround.

[Thomas Burns @BurnsPA1]

@attorneydad @CecereCarl But is that even true about paper filings? In Tampa, where I live, I can mail paper copies until 10pm. And if I were mailing a brief from, say, California, I suspect I could have it postmarked same day but after midnight Philly time.

[Thomas Burns @BurnsPA1]

@CecereCarl @howappealing It’s also for only some CA3 filings, not all CA3 filings (e.g., there’s an exception for those that “initiate” appellate proceedings)… https://t.co/Hq2i2Z1RaY