Milbank LLP Litigation & Arbitration partner Neal Katyal, who leads Milbank’s Supreme Court and Appellate Group, has been named one of the Top 20 Practitioners across the globe by the Financial Times at the Innovative Lawyers Global Summit, hosted on June 24, 2025, in London. As part of the global summit, Mr. Katyal spoke on a panel titled “The Lawyer 2030,” which explored the rapidly changing role of the practicing lawyer. The session was accompanied by the roll call of the Top 20 Practitioners, which highlights 20 individuals selected from 20 years of the FT Innovative Lawyers series whose careers have exemplified legal innovation.
The FT Innovative Lawyers series is a ranking, report and awards program that highlights the most innovative lawyers and firms across North America, Asia-Pacific and Europe produced by the Financial Times and its research partner RSGI. To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the series, the Financial Times hosted a summit that brought together the industry’s most distinguished leaders for a one-off event in which FT Innovative Lawyers alumni and future leaders pooled insights and experiences and reflected on lessons learned over the past two decades.
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.
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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