Sekou Diarra
Associate
Works beside trial lawyers on motions and jury instructions, and builds the record for each appeal.
Sekou joined the firm after a clerkship, and he is the lawyer a trial team calls when it wants an appellate reader in the room before the verdict. He drafts proposed jury instructions, writes post-trial motions and keeps the list of objections an appeal will depend on. On the firm's own appeals he assembles the record: every transcript, exhibit and order, indexed so the brief can cite each page exactly.
Takes on
- Jury instructions
- Post-trial motions
- Preserving the record
- Record appendices
Sekou’s admissions, courts and schools
Bar admissions
District of Columbia
2021
New York
2020
Courts
U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia
District of Columbia Court of Appeals
Education
J.D., Howard University School of Law
B.A., Morehouse College
Languages
English
French
Bambara
Memberships
The District of Columbia Bar
Sekou on the objection nobody made
The most common reason a good appellate issue fails is that nobody objected at the time. I sit with trial teams to make sure that, when the ruling goes the wrong way, the objection is on the record and says why.
After the verdict, the clock for post-trial motions is short. I keep a running list during trial so the motions are mostly written by the time the jury comes back.