When the U.S. Supreme Court removed the Trump administration s travel ban cases from the Oct. 10 argument slot, there was a lone case left standing for argument a jurisdictional puzzle that would not draw nearly the attention given to the immigration challenges. The American Academy of Appellate Lawyers doesn t file many amicus briefs in the Supreme Court, but it saw a trap for the unwary in the case Hamer v. Neighborhood Housing Services of Chicago.
Charmaine Hamer sued her former employer, alleging age discrimination. A federal district court granted summary judgment to the employers. Hamer s lawyer asked for and received an extension of time to file an appeal as he was withdrawing as her counsel and she needed to find a lawyer. The court granted 60 days for the filing, but the trial judge was wrong. A federal rule only allows 30 days. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit dismissed the appeal for lack of jurisdiction because of the 30-day rule.
The American Academy, which filed an amicus brief in support of Hamer, was founded in 1990. The national professional association is made up of 300 appellate lawyers, former judges and academicians from all but two states. Nominations to the organization can be made only by current fellows. Those nominees are vetted by a nomination committee, and if the committee recommends a lawyer, the board of directors makes the final decision.
Some well-known Supreme Court advocates are fellows, such as Gregory Garre, head of Latham & Watkins Supreme Court and appellate practice; Donald Ayer, of counsel at Jones Day, and Alan Morrison of George Washington University School of Law.
The academy won t write briefs, for example, about religious liberty or rights of privacy because that just doesn t fit who we are, said Charles Bird, the appellate academy s 2015 president and a partner in the San Diego office of Dentons. The fellows have passionate beliefs on both sides of controversial legal issues, he said. But the organization maintains neutrality on such issues, he said.
We don t have a point of view you could label partisan or policy, said Bird, who wrote the amicus brief in the Hamer case. We have filed briefs in cases where, first, we think we re actually being a friend of the court by bringing a perspective and some legal analysis that s not coming from the parties." Bird continued: Second, it has to be an issue that goes to things that at least we believe we know something special about. That can be technical appellate procedure or fundamental fairness in the appellate process. That s why we don t write a lot of them. The Supreme Court does not take many cases that fit that definition.