U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli
Solicitor General Donald Verrilli will be representing the Obama administration as the government’s top lawyer before the Supreme Court. He first served in the Obama administration as an associate United States deputy attorney general, later followed by a stint as the White House as deputy counsel. Verrilli was a senior litigator of the law firm Jenner & Block until 2009. He has 20 years of private practice experience, where he specialized in telecommunications, First Amendment and intellectual property law. A graduate of the Columbia Law School in New York, Verrilli served as a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice William Brennan.
Paul Clement
Paul Clement will be arguing against the health care reform mandate. Clement, originally from Wisconsin, is a former U.S. solicitor general, having served during George W. Bush’s tenure from 2004 to 2008. He is also an adjunct professor at New York University School Of Law. Clement served as a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. He has argued more than 50 Supreme Court cases, and remains heavily active in the Court’s current term. Clement was hired in April 2011 by congressional GOP to defend the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). He currently works two of his former law school classmates at a smaller law firm, Bancroft PLLC.
Michael Carvin
Michael Carvin, a partner at Jones Day law firm, is representing the National Federation of Independent Business in challenging the law. Carvin was one of the lead lawyers who argued before the Florida Supreme Court, on behalf of George W. Bush in the 2000 election Florida recount controversy. A graduate of the George Washington University law school, Carvin has numerous Supreme Court appearances where he argued numerous decisions including limiting the Justice Department’s ability to create “majority-minority” districts, and upholding Proposition 209’s ban on racial preferences in California.
Robert Long
Robert Long is a partner at the firm Covington & Burling who practices appellate litigation, antitrust and administrative law. Long was appointed by the Supreme Court to argue that the challenges to the mandate must wait until after that provision takes effect in 2014. Long was a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell after graduating from Yale Law in 1985. From 1990 to 1993, he served as an assistant to the solicitor general of the United States.
H. Bartow Farr III
H. Bartow Farr III was appointed by the Supreme Court to argue that the rest of the law can still stand even if the individual mandate is ruled unconstitutional. Farr clerked for Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist after graduating from Arizona State University’s law school in 1973. He later served in the solicitor general’s office from 1976 to 1978, and has also argued before the court numerous times.
