LA Bar Association Welcomes keynote speaker Neal K. Katyal '87

EVERY YEAR, hundreds of Loyola Academy alumni, parents and friends in the field of law convene at the University Club of Chicago for our annual LA Bar Association Luncheon, which connects Ramblers in the law profession to one another and to Loyola’s Jesuit values.

This year’s luncheon promises to be a truly memorable experience as we welcome Neal K. Katyal ‘87 to deliver our 2017 keynote address. The Paul and Patricia Saunders Professor of National Security Law at Georgetown University and a partner at Hogan Lovells since 2011, Katyal focuses on constitutional and intellectual property law.

“The LA Bar Association is thrilled that Neal will be keynoting our June luncheon this year,” says LA Bar Association Chair Matthew R. Devine ’85, a civil litigator at Jenner & Block. “One of Loyola’s most accomplished attorneys, Neal served as President Obama’s acting solicitor general, which is one of the most respected positions in the legal profession. In that role, he had enormous responsibility for representing the Obama administration’s policies before the U.S. Supreme Court.”

In his LA Bar Association keynote address, Katyal will talk about the impact of his Loyola Academy education on his life and legal career. He will also share his thoughts about some of the major issues involving the Supreme Court, including President Trump’s nomination of Neil Gorsuch as our next Supreme Court associate justice and his role as lead attorney for the state of Hawaii’s challenge to President Trump’s revised travel ban.

The son of Indian immigrants, Katyal has argued 32 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. At the age of 47, he has already argued more cases in U.S. history than any racial minority attorney, with the exception of Thurgood Marshall. He was once described by Chief Justice of the United States John Roberts as “one of the finest lawyers who has argued before the court.”

During his tenure as acting solicitor general of the United States, Katyal argued and won several major Supreme

Court cases, including his defense of the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, his defense of former Attorney General John Ashcroft for alleged abuses in the War on Terror and his unanimous victory against eight states that sued the nation’s leading power plants for contributing to global warming.

In 2006, Katyal won the landmark Hamdan v. Rumsfeld Supreme Court case, which affirmed that the military commissions established by the Bush administration to try Guantanamo Bay detainees violated the four Geneva conventions and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The case was hailed by former Solicitor General and Duke law professor Walter Dellinger as “the most important decision on presidential power and the rule of law ever. Ever.”

In another well-known case, Katyal represented Google, Facebook, Amazon and other companies, arguing that the FBI does not have the legal authority to force Apple to break into an iPhone that the San Bernardino gunman used in terrorist attacks. He also served as Vice President Al Gore’s cocounsel in the Supreme Court election dispute of 2000.

In 2011, Katyal received the Edmund Randolph Award—–the highest award granted to a civilian by the U.S. Department of Justice for outstanding contributions to the department’s mission.

The Yale Law School graduate, who has served as a law professor at Georgetown for two decades, was one of the youngest professors in the university’s history to earn tenure and a chaired professorship.

He has appeared on every major nightly news program and his articles have been published in virtually every major law review and newspaper in America.

The Washington, DC-based attorney was named one of the 40 Most Influential Lawyers by the National Law Journal in 2010, one of the 90 Greatest Washington Lawyers Over the Last 30 Years by Legal Times in 2008, one of the Top 50 Litigators Nationwide 45 Years Old or Younger by American Lawyer in 2007, Lawyer of the Year by Lawyers USA in 2006 and one of the 500 Leading Lawyers in America by LawDragon magazine for the past nine years. He was also the recipient of the National Law Journal’s Pro Bono Award in 2004. 4