District court amicus—“friend of the court”—briefs provide a distinct and underutilized opportunity for potential amici to make an impact on the outcome of cases of significance and on the development of the law. The arrival of an amicus brief in a district court case, as in an appeal, signals the potential impact of the case beyond the parties directly before the court and can have a profound impact on a case’s outcome.

In one case, for instance, our team filed a district court amicus brief on behalf of several professional medical organizations offering essential medical expertise to a district court facing a constitutional question about a medical practice; we were permitted to participate at oral argument on a motion for a preliminary injunction and our brief’s medical conclusions were cited by the district court in denying the motion. Our team has also filed amicus briefs in numerous cases about federal census policies explaining the real-world impact of flawed census data on businesses, with one district court ultimately citing our brief in a case striking down key census policy.