Abstract Why do litigants and amici curiae appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court? The judicial politics literature tells us that litigants do so primarily to win the case while amici are more concerned with the legal policy contained in the opinion. The concept of “legal rules” offers one mechanism to evaluate these claims. As legal rules are the Court’s legal policy, the extent of resources case participants devote to rules should reflect the extent they care about the case’s outcome or policy: the more they care about policy, the more attention they should devote to rules; the more they are interested in winning the case, the less attention they should devote to rules. I measure this attention via the number of legal rules litigants and amici suggest to the justices in their written briefs. The findings confirm that parties care primarily about victory on the merits while amici are generally concerned with policy. The results also indicate, however, that the aims of both litigants and amici can vary significantly by their status and that interest group amici in particular may be more interested in winning a case than we have recognized.

中文翻译：

---

“为什么要试试？比较美国最高法院诉讼中当事人和Amici的目的”

摘要 为什么诉讼当事人和法庭之友要上诉到美国最高法院？司法政治文献告诉我们，当事人这样做主要是为了打赢官司，而朋友则更关心意见中所包含的法律政策。“法律规则”的概念提供了一种评估这些主张的机制。由于法律规则是法院的法律政策，案件参与者对规则的投入程度应该反映他们对案件结果或政策的关心程度：他们越关心政策，就越应该关注规则；他们越有兴趣打赢官司，就越不应该关注规则。我通过诉讼当事人和 amici 在他们的书面摘要中向法官建议的法律规则的数量来衡量这种关注。调查结果证实，政党主要关心的是功绩的胜利，而 amici 通常关心的是政策。然而，结果还表明，诉讼当事人和 amici 的目标可能因他们的身份而有很大差异，尤其是 amici 利益集团可能比我们认识到的对赢得案件更感兴趣。