LENS Amici has no stake in who wins. That lets us offer appellate courts what the parties cannot, a view from the next case. We advocate for the clearest, fairest rule the law allows.
Hard cases tempt courts to bend the law. The pull may come from a sympathetic litigant, from deference to the government or another powerful party, or from facts that seem too unusual for the ordinary rule. Whatever the source, the bent rule governs every case that follows.
Our briefs follow a proposed rule past the case at hand, to what it will permit, what it will forbid, and how it will treat the next litigant. We take no side by subject, party, or politics, and we support or oppose the government as the law requires.
The same facts should produce the same result before any judge. Vague standards produce results that depend on who is asking.
We support holdings that fit existing law and that lower courts can apply with confidence.
Government and powerful private actors must act within limits that courts can define and enforce.
The law applies the same way to the sympathetic and the unpopular, the represented and the unrepresented. Sympathy is not a rule of decision.
The public is entitled to see how power is exercised. We support access to court records and government information.
We support only the rules we would defend for either side.
The right rule does not change with the parties. It protects the powerful and the weak alike. Neither sympathy nor power should decide a case. Ours is a government of laws, not of men.
Co-founder · Supervising attorney
Steven supervises every LENS Amici brief and serves as counsel of record. He is admitted in Illinois and Maryland and before the U.S. Supreme Court, the Fourth Circuit, the Northern District of Illinois, and the District of Maryland.
Co-founder · Law student
Ari identifies cases and drafts LENS Amici briefs. Even while still in law school, he has helped brief successful appeals in the Fifth Circuit and the Appellate Court of Maryland, with more matters pending. He came to law from finance and software. He grew up in Chicago, lives in Baltimore, and is the father of four.
Texas licensed escrow officers from neighboring states but denied a qualified applicant because he lived in Illinois. The appeal argued that Article IV requires the State to justify excluding nonresidents from a common calling. The Fifth Circuit agreed, held that Texas offered no justification, and ordered a preliminary injunction.
Baltimore City let owners redeem tax-sale properties without paying water bills that had become liens, leaving substantial water debt uncollected. Our team’s appeal closed that gap. The Appellate Court of Maryland held that post-sale water charges that become liens are delinquent taxes, and an owner must pay them to redeem.
We review requests from parties, counsel, and organizations. We file only when we can give the court something the parties have not.
Or email ari@lensamici.com.