Two members of the Colorado Supreme Court and Court of Appeals described to attorneys on Friday how and when to submit advocacy briefs from outside entities — and the tactics that turn off the judges who read them.

“I get that there are certain advocacy groups on particular sides. I can pick up a particular brief and know what it’s gonna say before I read it. That’s losing an opportunity,” said Justice Richard L. Gabriel. “What’s also not helpful is the ‘parade of horribles.’ … If we decide against you, the entire world is going to collapse tomorrow.”

Non-parties to a case that submit briefs are known as “amicus curiae,” which is Latin for “friend of the court.” Judge Ted C. Tow III said that attorneys often forget the second part of that phrase.

“You’re a friend of the court, not a friend of the party,” he said. “And the more table-pounding there is, it’s obvious that you are not a friend of the court.”

Gabriel and Tow spoke at the annual appellate practice update sponsored by the Colorado Bar Association.

While outside participation is common at the Supreme Court, Tow said amicus briefs are relatively rare at the Court of Appeals, averaging roughly two dozen per year but steadily increasing. He is the lone judge who decides whether to authorize the filing of an amicus brief for his court.

“To use a phrase I tell every law clerk I hire, an amicus’s job, in part, is to keep me from stepping in it,” Tow said.

He added that he finds amicus briefs most helpful if the Court of Appeals is addressing a new law that has never been interpreted and is written unclearly.

“It’s really that this is new ground. This is really new ground. This isn’t just applying established law to new facts. This is a whole different can of beans. Let’s take a look at this from a big picture,” Tow said.

Gabriel cautioned that amicus briefs cannot raise issues that the parties to a case have not raised. However, it is fair game for outside entities to talk about the policy implications of the parties’ arguments.

“What I’m worried about the most as a judge is unintended consequences in something that I write,” he said. “What can an amicus brief do? It can help us with policy ramifications. That would be adding something.”

Gabriel said it is particularly meaningful, although rare, when entities that are normally on opposite sides join together in a single brief. He also encouraged amicus entities to coordinate so that organizations that have a “slightly different spin” can avoid repeating the same message.

However, Tow said there is a danger in coordinating: The appearance that amicus groups are helping a litigant get around the word limit on their own arguments.

Kendra Beckwith, an attorney who frequently litigates in the appellate courts and authors amicus briefs, said she focuses on the narrative that a brief will tell the court. Not all cases will call for amicus participation, and there can be “fatigue” from having the same entities routinely submit briefs.

“What I’m really trying to explain to these two courts: This is the universe in which either this issue arose or it’s going to have an impact,” Beckwith said. “I’m citing to newspaper articles or I’m citing to studies or I’m doing something to explain to the court, ‘This is the universe we’re operating in.’”

For a lot of clients, she continued, “there has been an uptick in, ‘Listen, I want this institution, I want the judicial branch, to hear me. I am still affected by what these courts do and I want my voice to be a part of whatever is going on.'”

She added that, while amicus groups may be friends of the court, they are “a little closer with one side than the other.”

“We get that you’re writing as a friend of the court, but you’re aligned with one side,” responded Gabriel. Yet, he frequently sees briefs that claim to be submitted in support of neither party.

“Then you read it and it’s obviously in support of one party,” he said. “Don’t pretend you’re not when you really are. Don’t put it on the cover. That’s a credibility issue.”

Gabriel also said that amicus briefs can be helpful at the outset, when a litigant is petitioning the Supreme Court to take a case. Outside perspectives can show why the issue is an important one for the justices to hear, he said.

Although the Supreme Court also allows parties to file a brief arguing that the court should not hear a case on appeal, Beckwith said she would discourage amicus groups from filing opposition briefs.

In doing so, “you’ve just raised a whole bunch of hands that attract attention because you’ve said, ‘This is really interesting.'”