Milbank LLP Litigation & Arbitration partner Neal Katyal, who leads Milbank’s Supreme Court and Appellate practice, was named to the Financial Times’ 2026 FT Law 50 list in the “Leaders & Advocates” category. The inaugural list recognizes 50 legal leaders who are helping the commercial profession navigate velocity and instability and was presented at the FT Innovative Lawyers Global Summit on June 25, 2026. Neal was also named one of the Top 20 Practitioners across the globe by the Financial Times in 2025.
As part of the global summit, Neal opened the conference with a keynote address about lawyering in the 21st century and also spoke on the “The Rule of Law Under Pressure: A Global Reckoning” panel, which examined what is at stake, where the pressure points lie across different jurisdictions, and what leverage, if any, private practitioners, chief legal officers and civil society leaders have when systems come under stress. Neal remarked, “A win like this is great, but it goes to my incredible team at Milbank and the brilliant folks at the Liberty Justice Center who brought the case and fought at every step of the way.”
Neal 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 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. Before entering private practice, Neal served as Acting Solicitor General of the United States.
