In law, an appeal is a process for requesting a formal change to an official decision. The specific procedures for appealing, including even whether there is a right of appeal from a particular type of decision, can vary greatly from country to country. Even within a jurisdiction, the nature of an appeal can vary greatly depending on the type of case.

Generally speaking the appellate court examines the record of evidence presented in the trial court and the law that the lower court applied and decides whether that decision was legally sound or not.

The appellate court will typically be deferential to the lower court's findings of fact, such as whether a defendant committed a particular act, unless clearly erroneous, and so will focus on the court's application of the law to those facts, such as whether the act found by the court to have occurred fits a legal definition at issue.

If the appellate court finds no defect, it "affirms" the judgment. If the appellate court does find a legal defect in the decision "below", it may "modify" the ruling to correct the defect, or it may nullify the whole decision or any part of it. It may, in addition, send the case back ("remand" or "remit") to the lower court for further proceedings to remedy the defect.

In some cases, an appellate court may review a lower court decision de novo or completely, challenging even the lower court's findings of fact.

This might be the proper standard of review, for example, if the lower court resolved the case by granting a pre-trial motion to dismiss or motion for summary judgment which is usually based only upon written submissions to the trial court and not on any trial testimony. Check out what the North Carolina appeals lawyer has to offer about appealing.

Another situation is where appeal is by way of re-hearing. Certain jurisdictions permit certain appeals to cause the trial to be heard afresh in the appellate court.

Sometimes, the appellate court finds a defect in the procedure the parties used in filing the appeal and dismisses the appeal without considering its merits, which has the same effect as affirming the judgment below. Visit the North Carolina appeals lawyer to learn more about the law of appeal.

Generally, there is no trial in an appellate court, only consideration of the record of the evidence presented to the trial court and all the pre-trial and trial court proceedings are reviewed. Unless the appeal is by way of re-hearing, new evidence will usually only be considered on appeal in very rare instances, for example if that material evidence was unavailable to a party for some very significant reason such as prosecutorial misconduct. For more information about the law of appeals and how its done, then visit the North Carolina appeals lawyer for more details.