Legal News

Solicitor General Paul Clement to Resign

By Dan Slater

Solicitor General Paul D. Clement — who we think is the first solicitor general to really dig alternative rock — will resign on June 2, according to a press release.

Prior to his 2005 confirmation, Clement (Georgetown, Harvard Law) served for over four years as the principal deputy Solicitor General, and during that period served for nearly a year as Acting Solicitor General. Clement’s tenure of over seven years in the Office of the Solicitor General is the longest period of continuous service in that office by an individual who served as Solicitor General since Samuel Phillips, who served from 1872-1885, the press release says.

During his time in the Office of the Solicitor General, Clement argued 49 cases before the Supreme Court, prevailing in many, including Tennessee v. Lane, McConnell v. FEC, Rumsfeld v. Padilla, Gonzales v. Raich, and Gonzales v. Carhart.

According to a WSJ profile of Clement from last year, Clement belonged to the Federalist Society and held clerkships under U.S. Circuit Judge Laurence Silberman and then Justice Scalia. After the 2000 election, former Solicitor General Theodore Olson (now of Gibson Dunn) selected Clement as his deputy. “I wanted a deputy solicitor general made from the mold of John Roberts,” Olson said. Roberts held that job in the first Bush administration. Clement then succeeded Olson when the latter left government in 2004.

“Clement,” wrote the WSJ’s Jess Bravin, “comes across as easygoing and unpretentious. He is doubtless the first solicitor general to frequent Washington’s alternative-rock outpost, the 9:30 Club. (Although he likes the Scottish group Franz Ferdinand, he says his all-time favorite band remains the grunge pioneer, Nirvana.)”

No word yet on Clement’s next move.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on May 14, 2008 (boomark / email).