Donald Beaton Verrilli Jr. (born June 29, 1957) is an American lawyer who served as the Solicitor General of the United States from 2011 into 2016. He was sworn into the post on June 9, 2011. On June 6, 2011, the United States Senate confirmed Verrilli in a 72–16 vote. President Barack Obama had nominated Verrilli to the post on January 26, 2011. Verrilli previously served in the

Obama administration Barack Obama's tenure as the 44th president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 2009, and ended on January 20, 2017. A Democrat from Illinois, Obama took office following a decisive victory over Republican ...

as the associate deputy attorney general, and as Deputy

Counsel to the President The White House counsel is a senior staff appointee of the president of the United States whose role is to advise the president on all legal issues concerning the president and their administration. The White House counsel also oversees the Of ...

. He is currently a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of

Munger, Tolles & Olson Munger, Tolles, & Olson LLP (MTO) is a Californian law firm with offices in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. Charles Munger founded the firm in 1962 along with six other attorneys. Legal practice Munger, Tolles & Olson is know ...

and a Lecturer at Columbia University Law School, his alma mater.

Early life and education

Verrilli was born in

New Rochelle, New York New Rochelle (; older french: La Nouvelle-Rochelle) is a city in Westchester County, New York, United States, in the southeastern portion of the state. In 2020, the city had a population of 79,726, making it the seventh-largest in the state of ...

, in 1957 to Donald and Rose Marie Verrilli. Verrilli graduated from

Wilton High School Wilton High School is a public high school in Wilton, Connecticut, U.S., considered "one of Connecticut's top performers" in various measures of school success in 2007,Cowan, Alison Leigh, "Play About Iraq War Divides a Connecticut School", ''The ...

in Wilton, Connecticut, in 1975. He graduated ''

cum laude Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some Sou ...

'' from Yale University in 1979 with a Bachelor of Arts in history and graduated with honors from Columbia Law School in 1983 with a

Juris Doctor The Juris Doctor (J.D. or JD), also known as Doctor of Jurisprudence (J.D., JD, D.Jur., or DJur), is a graduate-entry professional degree in law and one of several Doctor of Law degrees. The J.D. is the standard degree obtained to practice law ...

, where he was editor-in-chief of the '' Columbia Law Review'', a James Kent Scholar, and a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar.Biography: Donald B. Verrilli, Jr.
Oyez Project.

Career

After graduating from law school, Verrilli served as

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

to Judge

J. Skelly Wright James Skelly Wright (January 14, 1911 – August 6, 1988) was a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and previously was a United States district judge of the United States District ...

of the

U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (in case citations, D.C. Cir.) is one of the thirteen United States Courts of Appeals. It has the smallest geographical jurisdiction of any of the U.S. federal appellate cou ...

from 1983 to 1984 and then for Associate Justice

William J. Brennan Jr. William Joseph "Bill" Brennan Jr. (April 25, 1906 – July 24, 1997) was an American lawyer and jurist who served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1956 to 1990. He was the seventh-longest serving justice ...

of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1984 to 1985. Verrilli was a fellow at

Columbia University Law School Columbia Law School (Columbia Law or CLS) is the Law school in the United States, law school of Columbia University, a Private university, private Ivy League university in New York City. Columbia Law is widely regarded as one of the most prestig ...

from 1985 to 1986, where he is now a Lecturer in Law. He then joined Ennis Friedman & Bersoff, in Washington, in 1986. then joined Jenner & Block LLP, in 1988, as an associate, and eventually became a partner. While working at Jenner & Block, Verrilli also was 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, however the genera ...

American University The American University (AU or American) is a private federally chartered research university in Washington, D.C. Its main campus spans 90 acres (36 ha) on Ward Circle, mostly in the Spring Valley neighborhood of Northwest D.C. AU was charte ...

's Washington College of Law (spring 1995) and Georgetown University Law Center (from 1992 to 2008). At Jenner & Block, Verrilli specialized in telecommunications, media and First Amendment law. In 2005, he represented the

Recording Industry Association of America The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is a trade organization that represents the music recording industry in the United States. Its members consist of record labels and distributors that the RIAA says "create, manufacture, and/o ...

(RIAA) before the Supreme Court in ''

MGM Studios, Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd. ''MGM Studios, Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd.'', 545 U.S. 913 (2005), is a United States Supreme Court decision in which the Court ruled unanimously that the defendants, peer-to-peer file sharing companies Grokster and Streamcast (maker of Morpheus), cou ...

''. In 2007, he represented

Viacom Viacom, an abbreviation of Video and Audio Communications, may refer to: * Viacom (1952–2006), a former American media conglomerate * Viacom (2005–2019), a former company spun off from the original Viacom * Viacom18, a joint venture between Par ...

in ''

Viacom International Inc. v. YouTube, Inc. ''Viacom International, Inc. v. YouTube, Inc.'', 676 F.3d 19 (2nd Cir., 2012), was a United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit decision regarding liability for copyright infringement committed by the users of an online video hosting ...

''. During the same year, he also represented RIAA in ''

Capitol v. Thomas ''Capitol Records, Inc. v. Thomas-Rasset'' was the first file-sharing copyright infringement lawsuit in the United States brought by major record labels to be tried before a jury. The defendant, Jammie Thomas-Rasset, was found liable to the plai ...

'' and opposed the retrial of the case. Verrilli was appointed by President Barack Obama to become an associate deputy attorney general at the U.S. Department of Justice and served in this post from February 2009 to January 2010. In February 2010, Verrilli joined the Office of White House Counsel as a senior and deputy counsel to the president. By 2012, Verrilli had participated in more than 100 cases before the Supreme Court, and given oral argument in seventeen of those. In addition to Grokster, these include two pro bono cases that were notable in the area of defendants rights. In ''

Wiggins v. Smith ''Wiggins v. Smith'', 539 U.S. 510 (2003), is a case in which the United States Supreme Court spelled out standards for "effectiveness" in the constitutional right to legal counsel guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment.. Previously the court had de ...

'', Verrilli successfully argued that his client had been denied effective assistance of counsel. In ''

Montejo v. Louisiana ''Montejo v. Louisiana'', 556 U.S. 778 (2009), is a 5–4 decision by the United States Supreme Court that overruled the Court's decision in '' Michigan v. Jackson''. The case concerned the validity of a defendant's waiver of his right to cou ...

'', he unsuccessfully argued that his client's Sixth Amendment rights had been violated when he was questioned after having counsel appointed for him.

Work as Solicitor General

On January 26, 2011, President Obama nominated Verrilli to succeed

Elena Kagan Elena Kagan ( ; born April 28, 1960) is an American lawyer who serves as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. She was nominated by President Barack Obama on May 10, 2010, and has served since August 7, 2010. Kagan ...

as Solicitor General of the United States. On May 12, 2011, the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary voted 17-1 to forward Verrilli's nomination to the full Senate. On May 26, 2011, Senate Democrats filed for cloture on Verrilli's nomination. A cloture vote was withdrawn right before it was scheduled. Instead, the Senate on June 6 proceeded straight to an up-or-down vote on Verrilli's nomination. Senators then confirmed Verrilli in a 72–16 vote. Verrilli was sworn in on June 9, 2011, and became the 46th Solicitor General. He finished his position in June 2016; his final day on the job was Friday, June 25. On March 26, 27 and 28, 2012, Verrilli argued the

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

before the Supreme Court. His performance on the 27th, the first involving substantive arguments regarding the constitutionality of the PPACA, was widely panned as a "disaster" for the Obama administration. However, he was vindicated on June 28, 2012, when the court

ruled ''Ruled'' is the fifth full-length LP by The Giraffes. Drums, bass and principal guitar tracks recorded at The Bunker in Brooklyn, NY. Vocals and additional guitars recorded at Strangeweather in Brooklyn, NY. Mixed at Studio G in Brooklyn, NY ...

that the individual mandate and most of the Act was constitutional, albeit as a tax and not as an exercise of Congress’s power under the Commerce Clause. His oral arguments were praised by some who remarked that "court arguments are not television anchor tryouts; they’re about the merits of an argument, and a review of the transcript of the oral arguments from that day (with the benefit of hindsight, of course) finds Verrilli made a strong case for the government’s taxing power." CNN legal commentator Jeffrey Toobin, one of Verrilli's strongest critics, apologized on-air and said "This is a day for Don Verrilli to take an enormous amount of credit, and for me to eat a bit of crow, because he won, and everyone should know that that argument was a winning argument, whatever you thought of it." After hearing his arguments in ''

Shelby County v. Holder ''Shelby County v. Holder'', 570 U.S. 529 (2013), was a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States regarding the constitutionality of two provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965: Section 5, which requires certain states a ...

'', Lincoln Caplan of '' The New York Times'' called Verrilli a "lawyer's lawyer" and said that he "isn't showy, but he is a deeply experienced and capable advocate who finds ways to make technical legal arguments that persuade a majority of justices. While he's not inspiring, he's often effective." In early June 2016, Verrilli announced that he would step down as solicitor general; Verrilli is the seventh longest serving solicitor general in U.S. history.

Personal life

In 1988, Verrilli married Gail W. Laster, who is director of the Office of Consumer Protection at the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA). They have one daughter.

References

External links