A large crowd rallies on the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court, led by top Democrat lawmakers, to denounce President Donald Trump’s executive order banning immigration from 7 Muslim-majority countries, on January 30, 2017.
(Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi/ALM)
If the U.S. Supreme Court agrees to hear the case against President Donald Trump’s revised travel ban executive order, they’ll see a mix of familiar faces from Big Law and government representing the president.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit last week upheld an injunction against the order, which bars immigration from six majority-Muslim countries. The court agreed to hear the case en banc in a move that fast-tracked the litigation for the Supreme Court.
The government asked the Supreme Court to step in Thursday.
Taking up the case will lead to a showdown between lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union and National Immigration Law Center and the federal government. So who’s on the government’s team? Their names might ring a few bells:
Jeffrey Wall. (Photo by Diego M. Radzinschi)
Jeffrey Wall: As acting solicitor general, Jeffrey Wall has been at the forefront of the second round of travel ban litigation. After the Ninth Circuit upheld an injunction against Trump’s first travel ban executive order, issued in January, Trump issued a revised order in March.
Wall has defended that new order at the district courts in Maryland and Hawaii and then the appeals courts in the Fourth and Ninth circuit. In fact, Fourth Circuit Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson had to recuse himself because Wall is married to his daughter.
Wall returned to the DOJ in March after a brief stint as the co-head of the appellate litigation practice at Sullivan & Cromwell. He was an assistant to the solicitor general from 2008 to 2013, and worked at Kirkland & Ellis as an associate prior to that. He got his start as a law clerk for Justice Clarence Thomas. He is a graduate of Georgetown University and the University of Chicago School of Law.
August Flentje: Before Jeffrey Wall, there was August Flentje, at least when it came to travel ban litigation.
Flentje argued the case against the first travel ban back in February, including a widely watched oral argument before the Ninth Circuit. The decision to have him argue that case came at the last minute.
Originally, then-acting Solicitor General Noel Francisco and acting Associate Attorney General Chad Readler were on deck, but both had just left Jones Day, which filed amicus briefs in the case against the first order. The government then turned to Flentje, a career government lawyer.
He’s been at the department since 1998, mainly serving as a Civil Division trial attorney. He earned an undergraduate degree at Princeton University and a law degree from Georgetown University Law Center.
Hashim Mooppan: Speaking of Jones Day, Hashim Mooppan was an associate and partner there until joining the Justice Department in February, along with more than a dozen other colleagues.
He became deputy assistant attorney general for civil appellate in May. He appeared in an en banc argument before the D.C. Circuit last month, defending the structure of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Mooppan is no stranger to the high court. He argued his first case there, an antitrust matter involving the Federal Trade Commission, when he was a 33-year-old associate. He also made waves in a 2012 case against the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate, National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius. Both cases were lost at the Supreme Court.
Mooppan got his undergraduate and law degrees from Harvard University and clerked for Justice Antonin Scalia.
Jonathan Bond: Jones Day isn’t the only big law presence on the government’s team. Jonathan Bond became a partner at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in December, but joined the Justice Department recently as an assistant to the solicitor general.
At Gibson Dunn, he focused on appellate litigation involving constitutional law and a host of other issues. He was most recently on the team that argued an en banc case before the D.C. Circuit defending the Securities and Exchange Commission’s administrative law judges.
He graduated from George Washington University Law School and also clerked for Scalia. He got his undergraduate degree at Grove City College and a masters in public policy from the University College London.
Deputy Solicitor General Edwin Kneedler (PUBLIC DOMAIN PHOTO)
Edwin Kneedler: Edwin Kneedler is perhaps the best-known lawyer by the Supreme Court justices. He’s argued more than 125 cases there, likely more than any other practicing lawyer today.
Kneedler, the deputy solicitor general, has been at the Justice Department for more than 40 years under seven presidents. Kneedler started at the DOJ in 1979 when Scalia hired him to work in the Office of Legal Counsel.
He’s also worked with Justices John G. Roberts, Samuel Alito Jr. and Elena Kagan at various points in his DOJ career before they joined the bench.
Kneedler has worked on a range of legal issues including the ACA individual mandate case in 2012.
Kneedler graduated from Lehigh University and the University of Virginia Law School.
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