The University of Alabama School of Law
The University of Alabama School of Law
The Office of the Solicitor General is responsible for supervising and conducting government litigation in the United States Supreme Court. They determine which cases will be brought in front of the Supreme Court by the United States government and participate in preparing the petitions, briefs, and all other papers that get filed. The Solicitor General then conducts the oral arguments. Those not argued by the Solicitor General personally will be assigned either to an Assistant to the Solicitor General or to another government attorney. In addition to these responsibilities, they also review all cases decided adversely to the government in the lower courts and determine whether they should be appealed and, if so, what position should be taken.
The website has electronic versions of briefs filed by the Solicitor General beginning in the 1983 term. The easiest way to find it would be to select the "Briefs" link, which will take you to a table that has all of the Supreme Court Briefs the office has filed. If you know what case you are looking for, you can search by "Caption or Docket Number," as well as "Supreme Court Term," "Type," or "Subject." If you are unsure, there is also an option to do a full text search of Supreme Court Briefs that allows key word searching to find cases.