The Court of Appeals of Georgia is the intermediate appellate court for the State of Georgia. The Court of Appeals reviews appeals from the trial courts or lower courts when jurisdiction is not exclusively reserved to the Supreme Court of Georgia or other courts. (See Section 10: the Georgia Court System, in this guide). Cases come to the Court of Appeals in three ways: by direct appeals, or appeals by right; by granted applications for discretionary appeal, or appeals the Court agrees to hear at the end of a case; and granted applications for interlocutory appeal, or appeals before a trial ends that the Court agrees to hear.
The Court of Appeals has fifteen judges, who are divided into five “divisions.” Each division has three judges, one of whom is a presiding judge. Generally, an appeal will be decided only by those three judges. All of the judges review the record, the briefs, and the relevant law. The judge “assigned” to the case looks at the appeal first and writes a decision or order, then the other two judges read the decision or order and agree or disagree with the first judge. In rare cases, such as when the Court considers whether to change its case law or the issue is extremely important, all fifteen judges of the Court will decide an appeal.
The Clerk’s Office of the Court of Appeals is open Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. The office is closed on state holidays and during extremely bad weather. We will post a notice on the Court’s website, under the Announcements tab, when the office is closed because of bad weather.
Website
Mailing Address
Court of Appeals of Georgia
Clerk of Court
330 Capitol Avenue, S.E.
1st Floor • Suite 1601
Atlanta, Georgia 30334
Telephone
404-656-3450
Rules mentioned in this guide, are the Rules of the Court of Appeals of Georgia.