Appeal

Type: Concept

As of November 2026, Appeal has been mentioned in one podcast episode on Dateline NBC (Aug 2025).

In law, an appeal is the process in which cases or decisions are reviewed by a higher authority, where parties request a formal change to an official decision. Appeals function both as a process for error correction as well as a process of clarifying and interpreting law. Although appellate courts have existed for thousands of years, common law countries did not incorporate an affirmative right to appeal into their jurisprudence until the 19th century.