Technology Appellate Practice
Most technology cases get decided wrong the first time. Appellate courts are where that gets fixed — and where the law that governs the internet actually gets written.
This Is Where Technology Law Actually Gets Made
The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act was written in 1986. Section 230 was drafted in 1996 to protect dial-up bulletin boards. The Electronic Communications Privacy Act predates the World Wide Web. Trial courts are applying these statutes to cloud platforms, AI systems, and large-scale data operations — and they're often getting it wrong, not because they're bad courts, but because the law genuinely doesn't fit the facts. That's not a criticism. That's an appellate opportunity.
We handle appeals in federal circuit courts and state appellate courts on technology-law matters where the trial-level outcome misread the statute, misapplied controlling precedent, or got handed a genuinely open legal question and picked the wrong answer. We also prepare amicus curiae briefs for technology companies and industry organizations in cases with broad precedential stakes. If you want someone who understands both the legal argument and what the code actually does — that's the value here.
What We Handle on Appeal
Computer Fraud and Abuse Act — 18 U.S.C. § 1030
The CFAA has been a mess since day one. The statute criminalizes "unauthorized access" and "access exceeding authorization" — language that's so vague courts spent thirty years disagreeing about what it means. In Van Buren v. United States, 593 U.S. 374 (2021), the Supreme Court finally narrowed the "exceeds authorized access" clause, holding it covers only those who obtain information from areas of a computer to which their access is not permitted — not everyone who misuses access they legitimately have. The circuit courts are still working out what that means. hiQ Labs v. LinkedIn Corp., 31 F.4th 1180 (9th Cir. 2022), pushed further on what "without authorization" means when the target is a public-facing website. These questions aren't settled. If your CFAA verdict rests on a pre-Van Buren theory of liability, it's worth a serious look.
Section 230 Platform Liability — 47 U.S.C. § 230(c)
Section 230 is simultaneously the most important statute on the internet and the most misunderstood. The core immunity provision — "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider" — has held the internet together since Zeran v. America Online, Inc., 129 F.3d 327 (4th Cir. 1997). But courts are now grappling with whether algorithmic recommendation, AI-generated content curation, and design defect theories fall inside or outside the immunity. Moody v. NetChoice, LLC, 603 U.S. ___ (2024), addressed the First Amendment dimensions of state content-moderation mandates. The section 230 frontier is active and the stakes are enormous. We represent both plaintiffs and defendants in appellate proceedings where platform immunity is the central question.
Digital Millennium Copyright Act — 17 U.S.C. §§ 512, 1201
Two separate fights live under the DMCA banner. The safe harbor provisions of § 512 — protecting platforms from liability for user-uploaded content when they comply with the notice-and-takedown regime — are constantly being stress-tested as rightsholders push for stricter "repeat infringer" policies and broader "red flag" knowledge standards. Then there's § 1201, the anti-circumvention clause, which has been used to threaten security researchers, interoperability engineers, and right-to-repair advocates for two decades. The Federal Circuit and the Ninth Circuit have both produced significant DMCA precedent, and the Copyright Office's triennial § 1201 rulemaking creates ongoing exemption questions that reach courts on review.
Software Patents & the Federal Circuit
Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank International, 573 U.S. 208 (2014), blew up a substantial portion of the software patent portfolio market by holding that abstract ideas implemented on a generic computer aren't patentable subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101. The Federal Circuit has spent the decade since Alice trying to figure out where the line is. Claim construction errors — where the trial court misread what the patent actually covers — are one of the most frequently corrected errors on appeal. If you lost a patent case at the district level on §§ 101, 102, or 103 grounds, we can evaluate whether the Federal Circuit is the right next step.
Trade Secrets — 18 U.S.C. §§ 1836–1839 (DTSA)
The Defend Trade Secrets Act created federal civil trade secret claims in 2016, but the circuit courts are still establishing what "reasonable measures" to maintain secrecy actually requires, what constitutes "misappropriation" in an era where employees carry entire codebases in their heads, and how the inevitable-disclosure doctrine maps onto software engineering employment. If a trade secret injunction is preventing your company from operating or a DTSA damages award doesn't reflect what was actually taken, the appeal may be the right move.
First Amendment & Compelled Speech in Technology Contexts
Governments keep trying to mandate how platforms design their algorithms, what content they must carry, and what disclosures they must make about how their software works. These are First Amendment questions — and they're not straightforward ones. Sorrell v. IMS Health, 564 U.S. 552 (2011), established that content-based restrictions on data use face heightened scrutiny. NetChoice, LLC v. Paxton pushed this into social media content moderation. We handle appeals where government regulation of technology platforms or software design implicates compelled or restricted speech.
Regulatory Enforcement Appeals — FTC, FCC, State AGs
FTC unfair-practices findings under 15 U.S.C. § 45(a), FCC enforcement orders, and state attorney general actions under statutes like California's CCPA are all subject to appellate review — and the standard of review matters enormously. Whether a court applies Chevron deference (now significantly curtailed after Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, 603 U.S. ___ (2024)) or de novo review to an agency's statutory interpretation can change the outcome entirely. We handle administrative enforcement appeals where the agency overread its authority.
Many technology criminal convictions and civil judgments rest on statutory interpretations that are actively contested across the circuits. If you've received an adverse ruling, the legal landscape may have shifted since your trial court briefing. See our technology criminal defense practice for pre-trial and trial-level representation on federal tech crime charges.
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