Milbank LLP partner Neal Katyal, who leads Milbank’s Supreme Court and Appellate practice, was named “The Attorney of the Year” at The National Law Journal’s 2026 DC Legal Awards. The annual awards celebrate outstanding achievements, innovation and dedication. Upon receiving the award, Neal credited his team, saying, “when clients hire Milbank, they hire not just me, but the best team in the business and our style of working together. The win was the result of brilliant lawyering by Colleen Roh Sinzdak, Will Havemann, Kristina Alekseyeva, Natalie Nogueira, Sami Ilagan and Jessica Huang, as well as the phenomenal lawyers from The Liberty Justice Center and other teams we have worked with over the past year.”
Neal, former Acting Solicitor General of the United States, is one of a few living individuals to have argued more than 50 cases before the Supreme Court of the United States and recently secured a landmark victory in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump. In a 6–3 decision that The New York Times described as “the most important Supreme Court decision this century,” the Court held that the president lacked authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to unilaterally impose sweeping tariffs without clear congressional authorization, striking down the tariff regime and reaffirming constitutional limits on executive power. Neal has also successfully argued Bristol Myers Squibb v. Superior Court, a landmark victory for personal jurisdiction law, and Moore v. Harper, which Judge Michael Luttig described as “the most important case for American democracy in the almost two and a half centuries since America’s founding,” among many others. Neal has been named to the Forbes America’s Top Lawyers list every year since its inception, and was also recently named a finalist for The American Lawyer's prestigious “Litigator of the Year” award — making him one of only two lawyers ever to have been named a winner or finalist three or more times.
Neal was also named a finalist in the “Appellate Attorney of the Year” category, and Milbank’s Supreme Court and Appellate practice was named a finalist for the “Appellate Hot List,” which recognizes firms nationwide that have handled exemplary appellate matters.
