Practice Expertise

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Areas of Practice

  • Appeals
  • Colleges and Universities
  • Congressional Investigations
  • Issues and Appeals
  • Litigation
  • National Security
  • Strategic Appellate Support
  • White Collar Defense and Internal ...
  • White Collar, Regulatory Defense and ...
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Profile

Judge Thomas B. Griffith, special counsel to the firm, recently served as a federal judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Judge Griffith served on the DC Circuit from 2005–2020. The Washington Post has described him as “widely respected by people in both parties” and a “sober lawyer with an open mind.” Judge Griffith joined the firm in 2021, focusing his practice on appellate litigation, congressional and internal investigations, and strategic counseling.

Judge Griffith began his legal career in private practice before serving for four years as Senate Legal Counsel, the nonpartisan chief legal officer of the United States Senate (1995–1999). In this capacity, he represented the interests of the Senate in litigation as well as advising Senate leadership and committees on investigations. After a brief return to private practice, Judge Griffith served for five years as General Counsel of Brigham Young University, the largest religious university in the country.

As a member of the DC Circuit, Judge Griffith was the author of approximately 200 opinions on a range of matters including administrative, environmental and energy law, and congressional investigations. He was appointed by the Chief Justice of the United States to serve on the Judicial Conference’s Committee on the Judicial Branch, which involves the judiciary’s relationship to the Executive Branch and Congress, and the Code of Conduct Committee, which sets the ethical standards that govern the federal judiciary. Judge Griffith is a Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School, and has held the same faculty position at the law schools at Stanford and Brigham Young Universities. He has long been active in rule of law projects in Eastern Europe, Eurasia, Asia and domestically.

Education
BA, Brigham Young University, summa cum laude, 1978

Areas of Practice

  • Appeals
  • Colleges and Universities
  • Congressional Investigations
  • Issues and Appeals
  • Litigation
  • National Security
  • Strategic Appellate Support
  • White Collar Defense and Internal Investigations
  • White Collar, Regulatory Defense and Investigations

Professional Career



Articles

  • The Degradation of Civic Charity, 134 Harv. L. Rev. F. 119
  • The Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court, Yale Journal on Regulation
  • Yeshiva University Fights for Its Freedom of Religion, The Wall Street Journal
  • The Role of the Article III Judge, BYU Studies Quarterly
  • Amy Coney Barrett’s Religion Won’t Dictate Her Rulings, Bloomberg Opinion
  • A Conservative’s Perspective on Promoting the Rule of Law, Building the Rule of Law: Firsthand Accounts from a Thirty-Year Global Campaign
  • DC Circuit Review Reviewed: A Reissued Opinion in a Significant Case, Yale Journal on Regulation
  • D.C. Circuit Review – Reviewed: One Step, Two Step? It Was Well Worth the Wait, Yale Journal on Regulation
  • Deference, Delegation, and Divination: Justice Breyer and the Future of the Major Questions Doctrine, The Yale Law Journal
  • A New Test Or Merely A New Name For Some Regulatory Takings?, Yale Journal on Regulation
  • Compromise for the sake of unity, Deseret News
  • Was Bork Right About Judges?, 34 Harv. J.L. & Pub. Pol’y 157, 159–62
  • Civic Charity and the Constitution, 43 Harv. J.L. & Pub. Pol’y 633
  • How judicial activism on the right and left is threatening the Constitution, Deseret Magazine
  • The case for civic charity, Deseret News
  • Perspective: The 2020 election was lost, not stolen, Deseret News
  • Building The Rule Of Law: Firsthand Accounts Of A Thirty-Year Global Campaign, CEELI Institute
  • Perspective: Supreme Court justices aren’t partisans in robes, Deseret News
  • We Must Support Bipartisan Efforts to Improve Civic Education, Washington Examiner
  • Perspective: The case for civic charity, Deseret News
  • D.C. Circuit Review – Reviewed: Justice Breyer’s Replacement and the D.C. Circuit, Yale Journal on Regulation
  • Lost, Not Stolen: The Conservative Case that Trump Lost and Biden Won the 2020 Presidential Election, LostNotStolen.org
  • Telling the Truth about the 2020 Election, National Review
  • Opinion: The Supreme Court isn’t broken. Even if it were, adding justices would be a bad idea., The Washington Post

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