When the attorneys in our Legal Division commit to represent a client, we consider that a long-term relationship. The Civil Litigation department alone has filed Petitions to the Supreme Court in eight of its cases over the past six years alone, asking the highest court in the land to consider these issues of vital importance. And, our attorneys support other cases with similar legal issues, as shown by the two amicus (“friend of the court” or supporting) briefs filed as well to show our support for others who challenge issues that matter to our clients. And even when the Supreme Court does not accept the case – as it does in less than three percent of all cases submitted to it by Petitions like ours – we know that the issues at least crossed the threshold and got consideration from one of the Justices.
Our Petitions involve our cases on issues including employment discrimination, unlawful profiling, protection of citizenship rights, protection of constitutional rights including the Second Amendment, unlawful religious inquiries in employment and employment discrimination based on religious stereotypes, unlawful detention and searches at the airport of U.S. citizens, retaliation for refusal to become an FBI informant by way of inclusion on a terrorist watchlist with no due process, attempts by officials to stifle free speech rights including the right to boycott, and watchlisting as well as lack of due process for an entire family of U.S. citizens, from the parents down to a child less than two years old. We filed supporting briefs with the Supreme Court on behalf of an inmate requesting the right to observe the tenants of his religion and maintain a neatly kept short beard, as well as an individual placed on the No Fly list who sought remedies in court for the harm that placement brought him even after his eventual removal from it (only after filing a lawsuit).
We will continue to see our cases through and assert our clients’ rights and issues from beginning to end, including from administrative filings all the way to the Supreme Court. Not all cases become ripe for a Supreme Court Petition, but when they do the attorneys in our Civil Litigation department stand ready and willing!
