First Amendment Amicus Brief Clinic

This Fall, I’ll be teaching a First Amendment Amicus Brief Clinic here at UCLA School of Law. The clinic will represent nonprofits, as well as academics or groups of academics, who want to file friend-of-the-court briefs in free speech and religious freedom cases. (The clinic will not file briefs in its own name, but will write and file briefs for amici that have an opinion about the case but that need someone to write the brief.) We are open to filing such briefs

1. in state courts or federal courts,
2. in trial courts, intermediate appeals courts, or courts of last resort,
3. at the merits stage or at the petition for rehearing, certiorari, or other discretionary review, and
4. in federal constitutional cases, state constitutional cases, and federal and state statutory cases (e.g., involving 47 U.S.C. § 230, anti-SLAPP statutes, Religious Freedom Restoration Acts, and the like).

The students will be drafting the briefs, but I’ll be Counsel of Record, so I’ll be vouching for the quality of the work product. (Note that I’ll be signing the briefs as a lawyer, not as an amicus myself, so the briefs will not necessarily represent my views about what the law ought to be.)

But we need cases to work on, ones in which the brief will be due (more or less) between September 20 and December 31. I already have a few in mind, but I’d like to know about more. So if you are a lawyer who is litigating a case that fits within these boundaries, and have a prospective amicus in mind but need a lawyer to represent that amicus, please e-mail us at amicusclinic@law.ucla.edu. Likewise, if you are an organization that would like us to represent you in such a case, please e-mail us as well.

Also, please forward this to colleagues who you think might find this helpful. And dedicate a few neurons to keeping this in mind over the Summer and the Fall; if you remember nothing else, remember the URL http://amicusclinic.org, which will take you to our Web page.