Our amicus practice
The Social Justice and Impact Litigation team has an active amicus curiae practice. Amicus or “friend of the court” briefs are written by individuals or groups that are not parties to a lawsuit, but have insights, experience, or expertise for a court to consider in making its ruling. In recent years, we have filed amicus briefs in dozens of cases. Typically, we use these briefs to highlight a unique local government perspective on an issue that the court wouldn’t otherwise hear. Multiple attorneys in our Office have received awards for their amicus advocacy.
Some of our most recent amicus work:
Beginning in April 2023, we filed a series of amicus briefs in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court in partnership with the City of New York in Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, et al., v. U.S. Food and Drug Administration, et al., Case Nos. 22A901 & 22A902 (S. Ct.), No. 23-10362 (5th Cir.), a case involving a challenge to the FDA’s approval of the abortion medication mifepristone. The press release with an example of one of those briefs, in which we urged the U.S. Supreme Court to block lower court orders restricting access to mifepristone, is available here.
In United States v. Idaho (9th Cir., Case Nos. 23-35440, 23-35450) and Texas v. Becerra (5th Cir. Case No. 23-10246), we filed amicus briefs in support of the federal government in cases involving the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA). Under EMTALA, hospitals are legally required to provide emergency care to all patients who come to their emergency room doors—including, where appropriate, emergency abortions. The amicus brief filed in Texas v. Becerra is available here. The amicus brief filed in United States v. Idaho is available here.
In National Center for Public Policy Research v. Weber (Ninth Circuit, Case No. 22-15822), we worked with Los Angeles County on a brief supporting California’s defense of Senate Bill 826, a law that responds to widespread gender discrimination in the corporate world by requiring gender diversity on boards of corporations.
Some additional examples of our amicus work:
In September 2020, we led a national coalition in filing amicus briefs opposing the Trump Administration’s assault on the U.S. Postal Service. The amicus brief we filed in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania is available here. The amicus brief we filed in the District Court of the District of Columbia is available here.
In May 2019, we led a coalition of more than 45 individual local governments and municipal associations in filing an amicus brief on an important public safety issue. Our brief supported the State of California in challenging a Trump Administration effort to withhold federal law enforcement grants from state and local governments that refused to follow the Administration’s anti-immigrant policy agenda.
In May 2018, we led a nationwide group in challenging the Trump Administration’s efforts to roll back women’s access to contraception. Joining with the City of Oakland and 15 other local governments, we filed an amicus brief urging the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to uphold an injunction that blocked rules that would have undermined the Affordable Care Act’s guarantee of cost-free insurance coverage for birth control. Soon after, we filed another brief in the First Circuit Court of Appeals as the same issue moved through the courts in other parts of the country.
When the Trump Administration tried to undermine non-discrimination protections for LGBTQI people, we filed a brief on that issue too. Leading a huge coalition of 70 cities and counties, and 80 mayors, we co-wrote a brief in October 2017 with the City of Los Angeles and New York City at the U.S. Supreme Court in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, a high-profile case involving a bakery that refused to sell a wedding cake to a same-sex couple.
As part of our longstanding work to defend local governments’ ability to decide not to use their own resources to assist with federal immigration enforcement, we also filed an amicus brief in October 2017 opposing a dangerous Texas law that prohibited Texas’s cities and counties from adopting “sanctuary” policies. As described more in our press release, we joined with a group of cities and counties and five national associations—including the Major Cities Police Chiefs Association—to file the brief, showing the broad support across the political spectrum for preserving this discretion.