A court-appointed amicus on Tuesday told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit that it should not take up a lawyer’s appeal of a district judge’s referral to a grievance committee over the filing of a frivolous election lawsuit.

Matthew “Max” Etchemendy, counsel with the firm Vinson & Elkins, was appointed by the D.C. Circuit in June to serve as an amicus on the question of whether Erick Kaardal had standing to appeal U.S. District Judge James Boasberg of the District of Columbia’s referral of the attorney to the committee. Boasberg made the referral last year over a lawsuit Kaardal filed challenging the 2020 election, with the judge saying the lawyer had “not sufficiently allayed the court’s concerns regarding potential bad faith.”