The U.S. Supreme Court is a public policy battleground in which organized interests attempt to etch their economic, legal, and political preferences into law through the filing of amicus curiae ("friend of the court") briefs. In Friends of the Supreme Court: Interest Groups and Judicial Decision Making, Paul M. Collins, Jr. explores how organized interests influence the justices' decision making, including how the justices vote and whether they choose to author concurrences and dissents. Collins presents theories of judicial choice derived from disciplines as diverse as law, marketing, political science, and social psychology. This theoretically rich and empirically rigorous treatment of decision-making on the nation's highest court, which represents the most comprehensive examination ever undertaken of the influence of U.S. Supreme Court amicus briefs, provides clear evidence that interest groups play a significant role in shaping the justices' choices.

Do interest groups lobby the courts in the same way they do the other branches of government? Are amicus curiae, "friends of the court," just lobbyist disguised as neutral information arbiters? State supreme courts are quickly becoming centers of policymaking for many social, economic, and political issues. In recent years, interest groups have realized this importance and participated at greater rates as litigants and as amicus curiae. Astonishingly little is known about the volume and composition of amicus curiae participation in the state courts of last resort or their impact on judicial decisionmaking. To address this gap in the literature, I collected data on amicus participation in the state supreme courts across all 52 state-courts from 2010 to 2014, including amicus briefs and corresponding judicial decisions. I analyze the characteristics of the amici as well as the information they provide. Through content analysis of amicus briefs and judicial decisions, using plagiarism software and selective hand coding of amicus briefs, I find that amicus curiae due in fact influence judicial decisionmaking in the state high courts. This influence varies across states and institutional constructs, specifically the retention mechanisms of the justices themselves, and the presence (or absence) of an intermediate appellate court. Finally, I analyze whether campaign contributions by amici participants influence judicial decisions in states with partisan re-election. I find that justices behave differently when facing re-election; borrowing a greater percentage of language from amicus briefs when their judicial seat is on the line. Not only does this dissertation have practical implications for interest groups, but it also raises concerns about judicial independence and accountability, adding to the longstanding normative debate in judicial politics regarding the best method for selecting and retaining justices at the state high court level.

Scourfield McLauchlan studies how Members of Congress participate in cases before the Supreme Court. Members have filed amicus curiae briefs every Term since 1977. The frequency of Congressional participation before the Court continues to rise, and it is now a fixture in Supreme Court litigation. McLauchlan examines how often Members of Congress participate as friend of the court, what types of cases attract Congressional attention, what motivates Congressmen to file amicus briefs, and whether Congressional friends of the court influence Supreme Court decision-making. She explores the implications of this trend for the principles of separation of powers and judicial independence.

Before Supreme Court nominees are allowed to take their place on the High Court, they must face a moment of democratic reckoning by appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Despite the potential this holds for public input into the direction of legal change, the hearings are routinely derided as nothing but empty rituals and political grandstanding. In this book, Paul M. Collins and Lori A. Ringhand present a contrarian view that uses both empirical data and stories culled from more than seventy years of transcripts to demonstrate that the hearings are a democratic forum for the discussion and ratification of constitutional change. As such, they are one of the ways in which 'We the People' take ownership of the Constitution by examining the core constitutional values of those permitted to interpret it on our behalf.

In the first book-length study of interest group litigation in Canada, Friends of the Court traces the Canadian Supreme Court's ever-changing relationship with interest groups since the 1970s. After explaining how the Court was pressured to welcome more interest groups in the late 1980s, Brodie introduces a new theory of political status describing how the Court privileges certain groups over others. By uncovering the role of the state in encouraging and facilitating litigation, this book challenges the idea that interest group litigation in Canada is a grassroots phenomenon.

When presidents take positions on pending Supreme Court cases or criticize the Court's decisions, they are susceptible to being attacked for acting as bullies and violating the norm of judicial independence. Why then do presidents target Supreme Court decisions in their public appeals? In this book, Paul M. Collins, Jr and Matthew Eshbaugh-Soha argue that presidents discuss the Court's decisions to demonstrate their responsiveness to important matters of public policy and to steer the implementation of the Court's decisions. Using data from Washington to Trump, they show that, far from being bullies, presidents discuss cases to promote their re-election, policy goals, and historical legacies, while attempting to affect the impact of Court decisions on the bureaucracy, Congress, the media, and the public.

The Model Rules of Professional Conduct provides an up-to-date resource for information on legal ethics. Federal, state and local courts in all jurisdictions look to the Rules for guidance in solving lawyer malpractice cases, disciplinary actions, disqualification issues, sanctions questions and much more. In this volume, black-letter Rules of Professional Conduct are followed by numbered Comments that explain each Rule's purpose and provide suggestions for its practical application. The Rules will help you identify proper conduct in a variety of given situations, review those instances where discretionary action is possible, and define the nature of the relationship between you and your clients, colleagues and the courts.