Anders v. California was a U.S. Supreme Court case in which a court-appointed attorney filed a motion to withdraw from the appeal of a criminal case because of his belief that the grounds for the appeal

Appeal

An appeal is a petition for review of a case that has been decided by a court of law. The petition is made to a higher court for the purpose of overturning the lower court's decision....

 were frivolous

Frivolous litigation

In law, frivolous litigation is the practice of starting or carrying on law suits that, due to their lack of legal merit, have little to no chance of being won. The term does not include cases that may be lost due to other matters not related to legal merit...

. This type of brief is called an "Anders brief." It has been argued that many judges would rather face a possibly meritless appeal than an Anders brief, because the court has to spend additional resources reviewing the record and flagging issues for the attorney that it finds potentially meritorious. The decision of whether or not to file an Anders brief is sometimes difficult for lawyers seeking to respect the ethical rules on frivolity while being zealous advocates for their clients.