I read that Tom Goldstein, the fellah who started SCOTUSblog, filed a brief in the Supreme Court on behalf of no client which did not argue one way or the other on the merits of the case but merely provided the court with information Goldstein had gleaned from a careful study of many cases involving similar facts and issues. Though one commentator called it a waste of time, others have suggested that it really was a rare instance of true professionalism; a member of the court wanting to make sure the justices decided the matter based upon the best information available and feeling that the advocates had not done a good enough job of providing it. An “amicus” in the truest sense of the word.
A few weeks ago, I spoke with a lawyer in South Carolina who had litigated an “original jurisdiction” case before that state’s supreme court that so split the bar that it filed an amicus brief in two parts, each half arguing a different side of the case. It reminded me of the joke about the schizophrenic lawyer who kept objecting to his own questions.
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