Professor Martin Flaherty was quoted in USA Today where he weighs in on tech companies’ decision to support a court brief opposing President Trump’s executive order on immigration and travel ban.
Amicus briefs allow interested parties to give the court their own take on the issues involved, without actually being a part of the case. There are few limits on who can submit them and especially contentious or important cases can have dozens arguing of briefs submitted on each side, said Martin Flaherty, a professor of constitutional law at Fordham Law School in New York City.
It’s not uncommon for parties with an interest (called “amici,” or “friends” in Latin) to come together to either divvy up what their briefs will cover or work together to craft a single brief as happened in the tech group’s case, Flaherty said.
While all such briefs are equal before the law, courts often take note of who is filing them.
An example Flaherty gave was a Michigan affirmative action case that went to the Supreme Court in 2003. An influential amicus filing came from a group of retired military leaders who argued that affirmative action was crucial for the nation’s military academies as it would be bad for the schools and the military as a whole were the officer corps not to reflect the diversity of the military as a whole.
“I would think that perhaps for certain justices, the fact that all these tech companies are saying this would be terrible for the country is important,” Flaherty said.