Re: ALA, ARL, ACRL To File Amicus Brief in Google Book Search Settlement

["B.G. Sloan" <bgsloan2@yahoo.com>]

Sandy Thatcher said:

"Doesn't an amicus, by definition, have to be an amicus of one of 
the contesting parties?"

I'm not a lawyer, but I did take six years of Latin. :-)

The full term is "amicus curiae", which translates to "friend of 
the court" (i.e., not necessarily a friend to one of the parties 
in a case or settlement).  The Merriam-Webster definition of 
"amicus curiae" pretty much sums it up: "one (as a professional 
person or organization) that is not a party to a particular 
litigation but that is permitted by the court to advise it in 
respect to some matter of law that directly affects the case in 
question."

Bernie Sloan
Sora Associates
Bloomington, IN

--- On Fri, 2/27/09, Sandy Thatcher <sgt3@psu.edu> wrote:

From: Sandy Thatcher <sgt3@psu.edu>
Subject: Re: ALA, ARL, ACRL To File Amicus Brief in Google Book Search Settlement
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Date: Friday, February 27, 2009, 7:34 PM

I'm not a lawyer, but I thought an amicus brief could only be 
filed in a case that is being contested, and usually at the 
appeals court level, rather than the district court, where the 
Google Settlement remains. Not being contested--since it is an 
agreement between all the parties in the case--what sense does it 
make to file an amicus? As noted in the story, only those who 
belong to the classes involved in the case can file an objection 
to the Settlement, and libraries are not part of the class.  I 
and other publishers certainly welcome comments from the library 
community, many of which have already been aired, but would 
someone explain to me how an amicus brief works in this instance? 
Doesn't an amicus, by definition, have to be an amicus of one of 
the contesting parties? There are none such in a Settlement!

Sandy Thatcher
Penn State University Press