Milbank LLP Litigation & Arbitration partner Neal Katyal, who leads Milbank’s Supreme Court and Appellate Group, has been named one of three finalists for DC Attorney of the Year by The National Law Journal as part of its annual NLJ Awards. The NLJ Awards recognize outstanding achievements, innovation and dedication within the legal community. The DC Attorney of the Year category highlights prominent DC-area attorneys that have made a significant impact on the legal profession and the law. Mr. Katyal recently made headlines for successfully orally arguing the V.O.S. Selections, Inc. v. Trump case en banc in the Federal Circuit, which struck down President Trump’s tariffs as illegal and unconstitutional.
Mr. Katyal focuses on appellate and complex litigation, with extensive experience in all sorts of matters of federal and state law. He is one of a few living individuals to have argued more than 50 cases before the Supreme Court of the United States. A 2023 study found Mr. Katyal had argued more Supreme Court cases than anyone else, save one person, in the preceding six years, and a 2024 study found him to be one of the two most successful Petitioners to the Supreme Court at any law firm in the country. He is widely praised as a deep mentor to many, and of the eight Supreme Court arguments at his firms during this time period, he chose to only argue one of them, even putting an associate before the podium in Barnes v. Felix (the associate won).
Mr. Katyal leads Milbank’s Supreme Court and Appellate practice, which was recently enriched with the arrival of partner Colleen Roh Sinzdak. Ms. Sinzdak most recently served as Assistant to the Solicitor General in the United States Department of Justice and has argued before the Supreme Court 11 times.
Before entering private practice, Mr. Katyal served as Acting Solicitor General of the United States, where he argued numerous major Supreme Court cases, such as his successful defense of the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and of former Attorney General John Ashcroft in a case involving material witness warrants. As Acting Solicitor General, he was responsible for representing the federal government of the United States in all appellate matters before the Supreme Court and the Courts of Appeals throughout the nation, serving as Counsel of Record hundreds of times in the Supreme Court. He was also the only head of the Solicitor General’s office to argue a case in the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, on the important question of whether aspects of the human genome are patentable.
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