James Ho

James Chiun-Yue Ho (Chinese: 何俊宇; pinyin: ''Hé Jùnyǔ''; born February 27, 1973) is a Taiwanese American lawyer and jurist serving as a United States circuit judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He was appointed in 2018 by President Donald Trump, becoming the Fifth Circuit's only Asian-American judge and the only judge to be an immigrant.

Born to Taiwanese American immigrants, Ho emigrated from Taiwan as a child and graduated from Stanford University and the University of Chicago Law School. He served as the Solicitor General of Texas from 2008 to 2010, becoming the first Asian-American to hold the position. He has been identified as a potential Supreme Court nominee for Donald Trump's second term.

Early life and education

Ho was born on February 27, 1973, in Taipei, Taiwan, to So-Hwa and Steve Song-Shan Ho. His father was a doctor who specialized in obstetrics and gynecology. The Taiwanese American family immigrated to the United States when Ho was a child, moving first to Long Island before settling in San Marino, California. He became a naturalized U.S. citizen at age nine.

Ho was educated at the Polytechnic School, a rigorous private school in Pasadena, where he became the editor-in-chief of the school newspaper, ''The Paw Print''. He was a high school classmate of Leondra Kruger, who later became a judge of the Supreme Court of California. Ho volunteered as an actor and dancer for school plays and briefly served as a football lineman. A classmate described Ho as "super-intense; he walked fast, laid out pages fast, and drove too fast, in a Ford Probe".

After high school, Ho studied public policy at Stanford University, where he wrote for ''The Stanford Daily'' and graduated in 1995 with a Bachelor of Arts with honors. From 1995 to 1996, Ho was a California Senate Fellow at California State University, Sacramento, and worked as a legislative aide to California state legislator Quentin L. Kopp. He then attended the University of Chicago Law School, where he was an editor of the ''University of Chicago Law Review'', joined the Federalist Society, and also served as an editor for ''The Green Bag''. In 1998, Ho served as the executive editor of the '' Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy''. He graduated in 1999 with a Juris Doctor degree with high honors and membership in the Order of the Coif. Upon graduation, the law school awarded him its Ann Watson Barber Outstanding Service Award, given for "exceptional contributions to the quality of life at the Law School".

Career

After graduating from law school, Ho was a law clerk to Fifth Circuit judge Jerry Edwin Smith from 1999 to 2000. He then was in private practice in Washington, D.C., at the law firm Gibson Dunn from 2000 to 2001. He assisted Gibson Dunn partner Theodore Olson with his representation of George W. Bush in the Supreme Court case ''Bush v. Gore''. From 2001 to 2003, Ho was an attorney at the United States Department of Justice, first in the Civil Rights Division in 2001 and then in the Office of Legal Counsel from 2001–2003. He was chief counsel to subcommittees of the Senate Judiciary Committee from 2003 to 2005 under Republican Senator John Cornyn.

From 2005 to 2006, Ho was a law clerk to Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas. He then returned to private practice at Gibson Dunn in its Dallas office from 2006 to 2008 and 2010 to 2017. From 2008 to 2010, he was the Solicitor General of Texas in the Office of the Attorney General of Texas

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