Supreme Court Formalizes Guidance for Its ‘Friends’

The Supreme Court Oct. 17 issued guidance for filers of friend-of-the-court briefs that “clears up a number of contested issues previously resolved through word-of-mouth lore among practitioners,” one of them said.

The guidelines on amicus briefs reflect a “collection of information that the clerk’s office would tell you if you asked,” but which was previously unavailable in written form, said Hogan Lovells’s Sean Marotta.

Whenever the clerk’s office would try to enforce these informal rules, it could cause confusion, Marotta said.

New information includes rules regarding “blanket-consent” letters, the listing of numerous amici, and explicit permission for an attorney ...