The solicitor general of the United States, the fourth-highest-ranking official within the United States Department of Justice (DOJ), represents the federal government in cases before the Supreme Court of the United States. The solicitor general is appointed by the president and reports directly to the United States attorney general.
The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies (FedSoc) is an American conservative and libertarian legal organization that advocates for a textualist and originalist interpretation of the U.S. Constitution. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., it has chapters at more than 200 law schools and features student, lawyer, and faculty divisions; the lawyers division comprises more than 70,000 practicing attorneys in ninety cities. Through speaking events, lectures, and other activities, it provides a forum for legal experts of opposing conservative views to interact with members of the legal profession, the judiciary, and the legal academy. It is one of the most influential legal organizations in the United States.
Akhil Reed Amar is an American legal scholar known for his expertise in U.S. constitutional law. He is the Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale University, where he is a leading scholar of originalism, the U.S. Bill of Rights, and criminal procedure.
Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, 548 U.S. 557 (2006), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that military commissions set up by the Bush administration to try detainees at Guantanamo Bay violated both the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) and the Geneva Conventions ratified by the U.S.
Paul Drew Clement is an American lawyer who served as U.S. Solicitor General from 2004 to 2008 and is known for his advocacy before the U.S. Supreme Court. He established his own law firm, Clement & Murphy, in 2022 after leaving Kirkland & Ellis, following that firm’s decision to end its Second Amendment work. He is also a Distinguished Lecturer in Law at Georgetown University and an adjunct professor at New York University School of Law. He was nominated by President George W. Bush on March 14, 2005, for the post of Solicitor General, confirmed by the United States Senate on June 8, 2005, and took the oath of office on June 13.
Charles J. "Chuck" Cooper is an appellate attorney and litigator in Washington, D.C., where he is a founding member and chairman of the law firm Cooper & Kirk, PLLC. He was named by The National Law Journal as one of the 10 best civil litigators in Washington. The New York Times described him as "one of Washington’s best-known lawyers." He has represented prominent American political figures, including Attorney General Jeff Sessions, in response to the alleged Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections; Attorney General John Ashcroft; and former National Security Adviser and United States Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton.
Charles D. Swift is an American attorney and former career Navy officer, who retired in 2007 as a Lieutenant Commander in the Judge Advocate General's Corps. He is most noted for having served as defense counsel for Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a detainee from Yemen who was the first to be charged at Guantanamo Bay; Swift took his case to the US Supreme Court. In 2005 and June 2006, the National Law Journal recognized Swift as one of the top lawyers nationally because of his work on behalf of justice for the detainees.
Neil McGill Gorsuch is an American jurist who serves as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was nominated by President Donald Trump on January 31, 2017, and has served since April 10, 2017.
The Institute for Law, Science and Global Security in the Department of Government at Georgetown University was established to promote teaching and research in the area of intersection between international law and international relations. The Institute sponsors undergraduate and graduate courses and runs a Master's Program in International Law and Global Security. The Institute seeks to inform the public policy debate about the nature, role and importance of international law as it connected to issues of science and global security. To this end, it sponsors a series of specific programs including the Program on Non-Proliferation Law and Policy, which is jointly run with the James Martin Center of the Monterey Institute of International Studies.
Charles Fahy was an American lawyer and judge who served as the 26th Solicitor General of the United States from 1941 to 1945 and later served as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from 1949 until his death in 1979.
Brett Michael Kavanaugh is an American lawyer and jurist serving as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was nominated by President Donald Trump on July 9, 2018, and has served since October 6, 2018. He was previously a U.S. circuit judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from 2006 to 2018.
Stephen Isaiah Vladeck is a professor at Georgetown University Law Center where he specializes in the federal courts, constitutional law, national security law, and military justice, especially with relation to the prosecution of war crimes. Vladeck has commented on the legality of the United States' use of extrajudicial detention and torture, and is a regular contributor to CNN.
Cornelia Thayer Livingston Pillard, known professionally as Nina Pillard, is an American lawyer and jurist serving since 2013 as a U.S. circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Before becoming a judge, Pillard was a law professor at Georgetown University.
With the advice and consent of the United States Senate, the president of the United States appoints the members of the Supreme Court of the United States, which is the highest court of the federal judiciary of the United States. Following his victory in the 2016 presidential election, Republican Donald Trump took office as president on January 20, 2017, and faced an immediate vacancy on the Supreme Court due to the February 2016 death of Associate Justice Antonin Scalia.
On January 31, 2017, soon after taking office, President Donald Trump, a Republican, nominated Neil Gorsuch for Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States to succeed Antonin Scalia, who had died almost one year earlier. Then-president Barack Obama, a Democrat, nominated Merrick Garland to succeed Scalia on March 16, 2016, but the Republican-controlled U.S. Senate did not vote on the nomination. Majority leader Mitch McConnell declared that as the presidential election cycle had already commenced, it made the appointment of the next justice a political issue to be decided by voters. The Senate Judiciary Committee refused to consider the Garland nomination, thus keeping the vacancy open through the end of Obama's presidency on January 20, 2017.
George Thomas Conway III is an American lawyer and activist. Conway argued and won the 2010 case Morrison v. National Australia Bank before the Supreme Court of the United States.
American Legion v. American Humanist Association, 588 U.S. 19 (2019), was a United States Supreme Court case dealing with the separation of church and state related to maintaining the Peace Cross, a World War I memorial shaped after a Latin cross, on government-owned land, though initially built in 1925 with private funds on private lands. The case was a consolidation of two petitions to the court, that of The American Legion who built the cross, and of the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission who own the land and maintain the memorial. Both petitions challenged the Fourth Circuit's ruling that, regardless of the secular purpose the cross was built for in honoring the deceased soldiers, the cross emboldened a religious symbol, and had ordered it altered or razed. The Supreme Court reversed the Fourth Circuit's ruling in a 7–2 decision, determining that since the Cross had stood for decades without controversy, it did not violate the Establishment Clause and could remain standing.
Washington State Dep't of Licensing v. Cougar Den, Inc., 586 U.S. ___ (2019), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that the Yakama Nation Treaty of 1855 preempts the state law which the State purported to be able to tax fuel purchased by a tribal corporation for sale to tribal members. This was a 5-4 plurality decision, with Justice Breyer's opinion being joined by Justices Sotomayor and Kagan. Justice Gorsuch, joined by Justice Ginsburg, penned a concurring opinion. There were dissenting opinions by Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Kavanaugh.
Niz-Chavez v. Garland, 593 U.S. 155 (2021), was an immigration decision by the United States Supreme Court. In a 6–3 decision authored by Neil Gorsuch, the Court ruled against the federal government, holding that deportation hearing notices need to be in a single document. Although a highly technical case, the decision received attention for being predicated on the single-letter word a.
Lisa Schiavo Blatt is an American lawyer known for her advocacy before the Supreme Court of the United States. As of November 5, 2024, she has argued before the Supreme Court 52 times—the most of any woman in U.S. history. She is a partner at the law firm Williams & Connolly and chairs the firm's Supreme Court and appellate practice. She previously worked as an appellate lawyer for the U.S. government in the Office of the Solicitor General and later chaired the Supreme Court and appellate practice at the law firm Arnold & Porter.
