Last November, the Supreme Court granted cert. review of the latest in a long series of challenges to the so-called birth-control mandate of the Affordable Care Act. Petitioners have argued that the mandate places a burden on their religious exercise, even with an accommodation from the government. All seven cases — Nos. 14-1418, 14-1453, 14-1505, 15-35, 15-105, 15-119, & 15-191 — have been vided and will be heard together this spring.
We have received numerous calls about filing amici briefs in these consolidated cases. Here are a couple of filing questions we’ve already received:
- I want to file in all seven cases. What should my cover look like?
If you can’t fit all seven case captions on your cover, you have two options:
- Reproduce all seven vided docket numbers at the top of the cover and use only the case caption in No. 14-1418 with “et al.” after both “Petitioners” and “Respondents.” Here is a sample amicus brief in support of the petitioners filed this month.
- Follow option one, and also reproduce the additional case captions on an inside cover. Here is another sample from the same case which follows this style.
The Court has no preference as to options #1 or #2, but you’ll need all seven docket numbers in order to be docketed in all seven cases. If you plan on putting additional amici or counsel on an inside cover, you may want to choose option #1 as the Court only allows a single inside cover.
- Does the Court require 280 copies of my brief?
The Court will take 40 copies regardless of how many docket numbers appear on your vided cover.
- Whom do I serve? How many copies do I send?
There are six counsels of record who require service, which means 18 service copies in total (three per counsel of record). You don’t need to serve other amici. We have the service list on file so that you won’t need to create your own.