Amicus curiae
Latin legal term meaning "friend of the court"
An amicus curiae (lit. 'friend of the court'; pl. amici curiae) is an individual or organization that is not a party to a legal case, but that is permitted to assist a court by offering information, expertise, or insight that has a bearing on the issues in the case. Whether an amicus brief will be considered is typically under the court's discretion. The phrase is legal Latin and the origin of the term has been dated to 1605–1615. The scope of amici curiae is generally found in the cases where broad public interests are involved and concerns regarding civil rights are in question.
In American law, an amicus curiae typically refers to what in some other jurisdictions is known as an intervenor: a person or organization who requests to provide legal submissions so as to offer a relevant alternative or additional perspective regarding the matters in dispute. In the American courts, the amicus may be referred to as an amicus brief. In other jurisdictions, such as Canada, an amicus curiae is a lawyer who is asked by the court to provide legal submissions regarding issues that would otherwise not be aired properly, often because one or both of the parties is not represented by counsel.
In international courts, legal submissions by intervenors are called amicus curiae observations.
History
Direct or indirect connections between the amicus curiae figure and the Roman juridical experience are still debated. Some scholars simply explain the Latin expression with the fact that the cultural elites' (including the jurists') language of the Anglo-Saxon world was Latin, so that many Latin legal terms first spread through English law, and then also in the Law of the United States.
“Amicus curiae” enters the record as latin legal term meaning "friend of the court". Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Amicus, curiae and Latin can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q46350. The Library of Congress control number is sh96004858. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1605 and 1615.
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This entry incorporates text from “Amicus curiae” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.