Solicitor General: Paul D. Clement

Paul D. Clement was the 43rd Solicitor General of the United States. He was nominated by President George W. Bush on March 14, 2005, confirmed by the United States Senate on June 8, 2005, and took the oath of office on June 13, 2005.

Mr. Clement is a native of Cedarburg, Wisconsin, and a graduate of the Cedarburg public schools. He received his bachelor’s degree summa cum laude from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, and a master’s degree in economics from Cambridge University. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School where he was the Supreme Court editor of the Harvard Law Review.

Following graduation, Mr. Clement clerked for Judge Laurence H. Silberman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and for Associate Justice Antonin Scalia of the U.S. Supreme Court. After his clerkships, he worked as an associate in the Washington, D.C., office of Kirkland & Ellis. Mr. Clement went on to serve as Chief Counsel of the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution, Federalism and Property Rights. Afterwards, he was a partner in the Washington, D.C., office of King & Spalding, where he headed the firm’s appellate practice. Mr. Clement also served from 1998 to 2004 as an Adjunct Professor at the Georgetown University Law Center, where he taught a seminar on the separation of powers.

Mr. Clement joined the Department of Justice in February of 2001. Before his confirmation as Solicitor General, he served as Acting Solicitor General for nearly a year and as Principal Deputy Solicitor General. He has argued 49 cases before the United States Supreme Court, including McConnell v. FEC, Tennessee v. Lane, Rumsfeld v. Padilla, United States v. Booker and Gonzales v. Raich.