WASHINGTON, November 20, 2008 – King & Spalding announced today that former United States Solicitor General Paul Clement will rejoin the firm’s Washington, D.C., office to establish an expanded national appellate practice and a strategic counseling practice.
Clement, 42, is returning to the firm after a seven-year absence during which he served as the 43rd Solicitor General of the United States, the nation’s top lawyer before the Supreme Court. The Senate confirmed Clement as the 43rd Solicitor General in 2005 at the age of 38, making him the youngest Solicitor General confirmed by the Senate since William Howard Taft in 1890. Before his confirmation as Solicitor General, Clement served as Acting Solicitor General for nearly a year and as Principal Deputy Solicitor General for over three years. In total, Clement served over seven years in the Office of the Solicitor General, the longest period of continuous service in the Office by a Solicitor General since the 19th Century. He has argued 49 cases before the Supreme Court, including McConnell v. FEC, Tennessee v. Lane, Rumsfeld v. Padilla, United States v. Booker and MGM v. Grokster. He also argued a number of the government’s most important cases in the lower federal courts.
"We are very pleased to welcome our former colleague and friend Paul Clement back to King & Spalding," said J. Sedwick (Wick) Sollers, managing partner of King & Spalding’s Washington office. "Paul is widely considered to be one of the most talented and accomplished lawyers of his generation and our clients and growing appellate practice will benefit greatly from Paul’s vast knowledge and experience before the U.S. Supreme Court, and before appeals courts nationwide."
Clement added: "I am delighted to be returning to King & Spalding. I know firsthand that King & Spalding is a tremendous firm and a wonderful place to practice law. I look forward to taking the firm’s appellate practice to new heights."
Clement clerked for Judge Laurence H. Silberman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (1992-1993), and for Justice Antonin Scalia of the U.S. Supreme Court (1993-1994). He then went on to serve as an associate in the Washington, D.C., office of Kirkland & Ellis, and as chief counsel of the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution, Federalism and Property Rights. He then was a partner at King & Spalding, where he headed the firm’s appellate practice until he joined the Office of the Solicitor General. Since leaving the Justice Department in June, Clement has been a visiting professor at the Georgetown University Law Center and a senior fellow at Georgetown’s Supreme Court Institute.
A native of Cedarburg, Wisconsin, Clement received his bachelor’s degree summa cum laude from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, where he was the Supreme Court editor of the Harvard Law Review. He also received a Masters in Philosophy in Economic and Politics of Development with distinction from Cambridge University.
The association between King & Spalding and Solicitors General goes back nearly a century. Founding partner Alexander King served as the nation’s 16th Solicitor General from 1918 to 1920.
About King & Spalding
King & Spalding is an international law firm with more than 880 lawyers in Abu Dhabi, Atlanta, Austin, Charlotte, Dubai, Frankfurt, Houston, London, New York, Riyadh (affiliated office), San Francisco, Silicon Valley and Washington, D.C. The firm represents half of the Fortune 100 and in Corporate Counsel surveys consistently has been among the top firms representing Fortune 250 companies. For additional information about the firm, visit www.kslaw.com/.
