Paul Drew Clement (born June 24, 1966) is an American attorney who served as U.S. Solicitor General from 2005 to 2008 and is known for his advocacy before the

U.S. Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that turn on question ...

. He is a distinguished lecturer in law at

Georgetown University Georgetown University is a private university, private Jesuit research university in Washington, D.C., United States. Founded by Bishop John Carroll (archbishop of Baltimore), John Carroll in 1789, it is the oldest Catholic higher education, Ca ...

and an adjunct professor at the

New York University School of Law The New York University School of Law (NYU Law) is the law school of New York University, a private research university in New York City. Established in 1835, it was the first law school established in New York City and is the oldest survivin ...

. He was nominated by President

George W. Bush George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician and businessman who was the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Bush family and the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he i ...

on March 14, 2005, for the post of

Solicitor General A solicitor general is a government official who serves as the chief representative of the government in courtroom proceedings. In systems based on the English common law that have an attorney general or equivalent position, the solicitor general ...

, confirmed by the

United States Senate The United States Senate is a chamber of the Bicameralism, bicameral United States Congress; it is the upper house, with the United States House of Representatives, U.S. House of Representatives being the lower house. Together, the Senate and ...

on June 8, 2005, and took the oath of office on June 13. Clement resigned on May 14, 2008, effective June 2, 2008, and joined the

Georgetown University Law Center Georgetown University Law Center is the Law school in the United States, law school of Georgetown University, a Private university, private research university in Washington, D.C., United States. It was established in 1870 and is the largest law ...

as a visiting professor and senior fellow at the Supreme Court Institute. He established his own law firm, Clement & Murphy, in 2022 after leaving

Kirkland & Ellis Kirkland & Ellis LLP is an American multinational law firm headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. Founded in 1909, Kirkland & Ellis has been the largest law firm in the world by revenue since 2017 and, as of 2025, is the seventh-largest by number ...

, following that firm's decision to end its Second Amendment work. During his career, Clement has argued cases on behalf of many

conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy and ideology that seeks to promote and preserve traditional institutions, customs, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civiliza ...

causes, such as opposing

gun control Gun control, or firearms regulation, is the set of laws or policies that regulate the manufacture, sale, transfer, possession, modification, or use of firearms and ammunition by civilians. Most countries allow civilians to own firearms, bu ...

; (report). defending a ban on federal recognition of

same-sex marriage Same-sex marriage, also known as gay marriage, is the marriage of two people of the same legal Legal sex and gender, sex. marriage between same-sex couples is legally performed and recognized in 38 countries, with a total population of 1.5 ...

; (report). advocating to

enjoin An injunction is an equitable remedy in the form of a special court order compelling a party to do or refrain from doing certain acts. It was developed by the English courts of equity but its origins go back to Roman law and the equitable ...

the

Affordable Care Act The Affordable Care Act (ACA), formally known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) and informally as Obamacare, is a landmark U.S. federal statute enacted by the 111th United States Congress and signed into law by Presid ...

; (report). defending Republican

gerrymandering Gerrymandering, ( , originally ) defined in the contexts of Representative democracy, representative electoral systems, is the political manipulation of Boundary delimitation, electoral district boundaries to advantage a Political party, pa ...

in North Carolina; (report). and, as Acting Solicitor General, defending the

Controlled Substances Act The Controlled Substances Act (CSA) is the statute establishing federal government of the United States, federal drug policy of the United States, U.S. drug policy under which the manufacture, importation, possession, use, and distribution of ...

under the

Commerce Clause The Commerce Clause describes an enumerated power listed in the United States Constitution ( Article I, Section 8, Clause 3). The clause states that the United States Congress shall have power "to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and amon ...

, (report). as well as the Bush administration's treatment of terrorism suspects. (report).

Early life and education

Clement was born and raised in

Cedarburg, Wisconsin Cedarburg ( ) is a city in Ozaukee County, Wisconsin, United States. Located about north of Milwaukee and in close proximity to Interstate 43, it is a suburb in the Milwaukee metropolitan area. The city incorporated in 1885, and at the tim ...

. He was one of four children born to Jean and Jerry Clement. After graduation from

Cedarburg High School Cedarburg High School (CHS) is a Public Education High School in Cedarburg, Wisconsin. Curriculum Classes offered at Cedarburg High School are grouped into 13 departments: art, business and information technology, engineering/technology education ...

in 1984, Clement attended

Walsh School of Foreign Service The Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service (SFS) is the school of international relations at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. It grants degrees at both Undergraduate education, undergraduate and Postgraduate education, graduate lev ...

and in 1988 received a

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, B.S., B.Sc., SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree that is awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Scienc ...

(B.S.) in foreign service, ''summa cum laude''. While at Georgetown, Clement successfully competed in the

American Parliamentary Debate Association The American Parliamentary Debate Association (APDA) is the oldest intercollegiate parliamentary debating association in the United States. APDA sponsors over 50 tournaments a year, all in a parliamentary format, as well as a national champion ...

as part of the university's

Philodemic Society The Philodemic Society is a student debating society at Georgetown University founded in 1830 by Father James Ryder, S.J. The Philodemic is among the oldest such societies in the United States, and is the oldest secular student organization a ...

. Clement then entered graduate study in

economics Economics () is a behavioral science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interac ...

Darwin College, Cambridge Darwin College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded on 28 July 1964, Darwin was Cambridge University's first graduate-only college, and also the first to admit both men and wo ...

, receiving a

Master of Philosophy A Master of Philosophy (MPhil or PhM; Latin ' or ') is a postgraduate degree. The name of the degree is most often abbreviated MPhil (or, at times, as PhM in other countries). MPhil are awarded to postgraduate students after completing at leas ...

(M.Phil.) with distinction in 1989. He then attended

Harvard Law School Harvard Law School (HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, Harvard Law School is the oldest law school in continuous operation in the United ...

, where he became the Supreme Court editor of the ''

Harvard Law Review The ''Harvard Law Review'' is a law review published by an independent student group at Harvard Law School. According to the ''Journal Citation Reports'', the ''Harvard Law Review''s 2015 impact factor of 4.979 placed the journal first out of ...

''. He was one of eight editors of the law review's annual lampoon who oversaw publication of a satirical piece mocking an article by Mary Joe Frug on the one-year anniversary of her murder. Clement and the other seven editors apologized for the parody after backlash from students and faculty. Clement received a

Juris Doctor A Juris Doctor, Doctor of Jurisprudence, or Doctor of Law (JD) is a graduate-entry professional degree that primarily prepares individuals to practice law. In the United States and the Philippines, it is the only qualifying law degree. Other j ...

, ''magna cum laude'', from Harvard in 1992.

Legal career

After law school, Clement was a

law clerk A law clerk, judicial clerk, or judicial assistant is a person, often a lawyer, who provides direct counsel and assistance to a lawyer or judge by Legal research, researching issues and drafting legal opinions for cases before the court. Judicial ...

to U.S. circuit judge Laurence Silberman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from 1992 to 1993, then to U.S. Supreme Court Justice

Antonin Scalia Antonin Gregory Scalia (March 11, 1936 – February 13, 2016) was an American jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1986 until his death in 2016. He was described as the intellectual an ...

from 1993 to 1994. After his clerkships, Clement entered private practice as an associate in the

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

office of the law firm

. Clement went on to serve as Chief Counsel of Subcommittee on the Constitution, Federalism and Property Rights of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. Afterward, he was a partner in the Washington, D.C., office of King & Spalding, where he headed the firm's

appellate In law, an appeal is the process in which Legal case, cases are reviewed by a higher authority, where parties request a formal change to an official decision. Appeals function both as a process for error correction as well as a process of cla ...

practice. From 1998 to 2004, he also served as an

adjunct professor An adjunct professor is a type of academic appointment in higher education who does not work at the establishment full-time. The terms of this appointment and the job security of the tenure vary in different parts of the world, but the term is gen ...

at the

, where he taught a seminar on the

separation of powers The separation of powers principle functionally differentiates several types of state (polity), state power (usually Legislature#Legislation, law-making, adjudication, and Executive (government)#Function, execution) and requires these operat ...

. Clement joined the

United States Department of Justice The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a United States federal executive departments, federal executive department of the U.S. government that oversees the domestic enforcement of Law of the Unite ...

in February 2001. Before his confirmation as Solicitor General, he served as Principal Deputy Solicitor General, and he became the acting Solicitor General on July 11, 2004, when

Theodore Olson Theodore Bevry Olson (September 11, 1940 – November 13, 2024) was an American lawyer who served as the 42nd solicitor general of the United States from 2001 to 2004 in the administration of President George W. Bush. He previously served as t ...

resigned. He has argued more than 100 cases before the United States Supreme Court, including '' McConnell v. FEC'', ''

Tennessee v. Lane ''Tennessee v. Lane'', 541 U.S. 509 (2004), was a case in the Supreme Court of the United States involving Congress's enforcement powers under section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment.. Background The plaintiffs were disabled Tennesseans who co ...

'', '' Rumsfeld v. Padilla'', '' United States v. Booker'', '' Hamdi v. Rumsfeld'', '' Rumsfeld v. FAIR'', '' Hamdan v. Rumsfeld'', '' Gonzales v. Raich'', '' Gonzales v. Oregon'', ''

Gonzales v. Carhart ''Gonzales v. Carhart'', 550 U.S. 124 (2007), was a List of landmark court decisions in the United States, landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court that upheld the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003. The case reached the high court after ...

'', '' Hein v. Freedom From Religion Foundation'', and '' Sekhar v. United States''. He also argued many of the key cases in the lower courts involving challenges to the Bush administration's conduct of the war on terrorism. he had argued more cases before the Supreme Court since 2000 than any other attorney. On August 27, 2007, President Bush named Clement as the future acting

Attorney General of the United States The United States attorney general is the head of the United States Department of Justice and serves as the chief law enforcement officer of the federal government. The attorney general acts as the principal legal advisor to the president of the ...

, to take office upon the resignation of Alberto Gonzales, effective September 17, 2007. According to administration officials, Clement took that office at 12:01 am September 17, 2007, and left office 24 hours later. On September 17, President Bush announced that Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division, Peter Keisler would become acting Attorney General, pending a permanent appointment of a presidential nominee. Clement gave notice of his resignation on May 14, 2008, effective June 2, 2008, and returned to Georgetown University Law Center as a senior fellow. He had been mentioned as a possible Supreme Court nominee in a

John McCain John Sidney McCain III (August 29, 1936 – August 25, 2018) was an American statesman and United States Navy, naval officer who represented the Arizona, state of Arizona in United States Congress, Congress for over 35 years, first as ...

presidency, and was a coveted potential hire among D.C. legal firms, who reportedly vied to build a firm around his expertise in appellate matters. Evan Tager of

Mayer Brown Mayer Brown is a global white-shoe law firm, founded in Chicago, Illinois, United States. It has offices in 27 cities throughout the Americas, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East, with its largest offices being in Chicago, Washington, D.C., New ...

said: "Paul Clement is the

Holy Grail The Holy Grail (, , , ) is a treasure that serves as an important motif in Arthurian literature. Various traditions describe the Holy Grail as a cup, dish, or stone with miraculous healing powers, sometimes providing eternal youth or sustenanc ...

of law firm recruiting... The buzz in the legal world about Clement is like the buzz in

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appro ...

when

LeBron James LeBron Raymone James Sr. ( ; born December 30, 1984) is an American professional basketball player for the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). Nicknamed "King James", he is the NBA's all-time leading scorer and ...

was coming out of high school and turning pro. It will be interesting to see where the market will go." As of November 20, 2008, Clement re-joined King & Spalding as a partner in its expanding appellate litigation practice. As part of King & Spalding, he argued on behalf of the

NRA NRA may refer to: Organizations Asia and Oceania * National Railway Administration, the national railway regulator of China * National Recruitment Agency, Central Recruiting Agency of the Indian Government * New Revolutionary Alternative, an anar ...

in the Supreme Court case ''

McDonald v. Chicago ''McDonald v. City of Chicago'', 561 U.S. 742 (2010), was a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States that found that the right of an individual to "keep and bear arms", as protected under the Second Amendment, is incorporate ...

'' on March 2, 2010. Clement was part of the legal team that represented

NBA The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada). The NBA is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Ca ...

players in labor negotiations during the 2011 lockout. Clement also advised ten NFL players in the spring of 2011 when the NFL was facing a potential lock-out. As a partner at King & Spalding, Clement was hired in April 2011 by the Republican majority in the

U.S. House of Representatives The United States House of Representatives is a chamber of the bicameral United States Congress; it is the lower house, with the U.S. Senate being the upper house. Together, the House and Senate have the authority under Article One of th ...

to defend the

Defense of Marriage Act The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) was a United States federal law passed by the 104th United States Congress and signed into law by President Bill Clinton on September 21, 1996. It banned federal recognition of same-sex marriage by limitin ...

, a law that defined marriage as between one man and one woman, after the

U.S. Department of Justice The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a federal executive department of the U.S. government that oversees the domestic enforcement of federal laws and the administration of justice. It is equi ...

chose to stop defending it. King & Spalding withdrew from the case on April 25, 2011, and Clement resigned from the firm to continue his representation, arguing that "representation should not be abandoned because the client's legal position is extremely unpopular in certain quarters." Clement joined Bancroft PLLC, a boutique law firm led by former

Assistant Attorney General Many of the divisions and offices of the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) are headed by an assistant attorney general. The president of the United States appoints individuals to the position of assistant attorney general with the adv ...

Viet D. Dinh. On March 27, 2013, Clement served for the respondent Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group (BLAG) of the United States House of Representatives at the Supreme Court in ''

United States v. Windsor ''United States v. Windsor'', 570 U.S. 744 (2013), is a List of landmark court decisions in the United States, landmark United States Supreme Court civil rights case concerning same-sex marriage in the United States, same-sex marriage. The Cou ...

''. On June 26, 2013, the Court ruled against Clement and BLAG by finding the

to be unconstitutional. Clement led the challenge on behalf of 26 states to overturn the

Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act A patient is any recipient of health care services that are performed by healthcare professionals. The patient is most often ill or injured and in need of treatment by a physician, nurse, optometrist, dentist, veterinarian, or other health ...

in the Supreme Court on March 26–28, 2012. The Court upheld the "individual mandate" as a tax, but found the States could not be compelled to follow the portion of the law relating to Medicaid expansion. Clement was mentioned as a potential Supreme Court nominee of Republican presidential nominees

and

Mitt Romney Willard Mitt Romney (born March 12, 1947) is an American businessman and retired politician. He served as a United States Senate, United States senator from Utah from 2019 to 2025 and as the 70th governor of Massachusetts from 2003 to 2007 ...

. In 2014, Jeffrey Toobin named Clement a likely Supreme Court nominee in the event of a Republican victory in the 2016 presidential election. In 2019, Clement was an attorney for the appellants in the landmark '' Rucho v. Common Cause'' Supreme Court case, in which partisan gerrymandering was declared a non-justiciable issue. In September 2020, Clement appeared on President Donald Trump's list of potential Supreme Court candidates. In June 2022, following his clients' Supreme Court victory in '' New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen'', Clement separated from Kirkland & Ellis, after the firm announced it would "no longer handle Second Amendment litigation". Subsequently, Clement opened a boutique law firm, Clement & Murphy PLLC, with Erin Murphy, another former partner at Kirkland & Ellis. In February 2025, Clement was appointed by Judge Dale Ho to present outside arguments against the Justice Department's request to drop the corruption case against

Eric Adams Eric Leroy Adams (born September 1, 1960) is an American politician and former police officer who has served as the 110th mayor of New York City since 2022. Adams was an officer in the New York City Transit Police and then the New York City P ...

Mayor of New York City The mayor of New York City, officially mayor of the City of New York, is head of the executive branch of the government of New York City and the chief executive of New York City. The Mayoralty in the United States, mayor's office administers all ...

. In March 2025, Clement recommended the case be dismissed with

prejudice Prejudice can be an affect (psychology), affective feeling towards a person based on their perceived In-group and out-group, social group membership. The word is often used to refer to a preconceived (usually unfavourable) evaluation or classifi ...

. In March 2025, Clement began representation of big law firm WilmerHale, LLP in its case challenging President Trump's March 27, 2025 Executive Order targeting the law firm. In April 2025, Clement joined the defense team representing Milwaukee Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan, who was arrested on April 25 for allegedly interfering with an

ICE Ice is water that is frozen into a solid state, typically forming at or below temperatures of 0 ° C, 32 ° F, or 273.15 K. It occurs naturally on Earth, on other planets, in Oort cloud objects, and as interstellar ice. As a naturally oc ...

arrest and deportation operation.Paul Clement Joins Arrested Milwaukee Judge’s Legal Team
Alex Ebert, ''Bloomberg'', April 29, 2025

Cases before the Supreme Court

Clement is among those attorneys who have appeared most frequently before the U.S. Supreme Court during the twenty-first century. * '' McConnell v. FEC'' (2003) * ''

'' (2004) * '' Rumsfeld v. Padilla'' (2004) * '' United States v. Booker'' (2005) * '' Hamdi v. Rumsfeld'' (2004) * '' Rumsfeld v. FAIR'' (2006) * '' Hamdan v. Rumsfeld'' (2005) * '' Gonzales v. Raich'' (2005) * '' Gonzales v. Oregon'' (2006) * ''

'' (2007) * '' Hein v. Freedom From Religion Foundation'' (2007) * '' NFIB v. Sebelius'' (2012) * '' Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl'' (2013) * '' U.S. v. Windsor'' (2013) * '' Sekhar v. United States'' (2013) * '' Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores'' (2014) * '' Zubik v. Burwell'' (2016) * ''

Cooper v. Harris ''Cooper v. Harris'', 581 U.S. ___ (2017), is a List of landmark court decisions in the United States, landmark decision by the Supreme Court of the United States in which the Court ruled 5–3 that the North Carolina General Assembly used race t ...

'' (2017) * '' Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis'' (2018) * '' Rucho v. Common Cause'' (2019) * '' Seila Law LLC v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau'' (2020) * '' Little Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter and Paul Home v. Pennsylvania'' (2020) * '' New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen'' (2022) * '' Kennedy v. Bremerton School District'' (2022) * '' Amgen Inc. v. Sanofi'' (2023) * '' Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo'' (2024) * '' Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County'' (2024)

References

External links

Appearances at the U.S. Supreme Court
from the

Oyez Project The Oyez Project is an unofficial online multimedia archive website for the Supreme Court of the United States. It was initiated by the Illinois Institute of Technology's Chicago-Kent College of Law and now also sponsored by Cornell Law School Le ...

Biography at Bancroft PLLC

Office of the Solicitor General
* , - , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Clement, Paul 1966 births Living people 20th-century American lawyers 21st-century American lawyers Alumni of Darwin College, Cambridge George W. Bush administration personnel Georgetown University Law Center faculty Harvard Law School alumni People associated with Kirkland & Ellis Philodemic Society members Law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States Lawyers from Washington, D.C. People from Cedarburg, Wisconsin Walsh School of Foreign Service alumni Washington, D.C., Republicans Wisconsin Republicans Solicitors general of the United States

Early life and education

Legal career

Cases before the Supreme Court

See also

References

External links