Paul Clement

Paul Clement

Paul Drew Clement (born 1966) is the current Solicitor General of the United States. He was nominated by President George W. Bush on March 14, 2005, confirmed by the United States Senate on June 8, 2005, and took the oath of office on June 13, 2005.

[edit] Early life and education

Clement is a native of Cedarburg, Wisconsin, and graduated from Cedarburg High School in 1984. He was a part of the debate team. He received his bachelor's degree summa cum laude from the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, and a master's degree in economics from Cambridge University. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School where he was the Supreme Court editor of the Harvard Law Review.

He lives in Swansea and smells

Following graduation, Clement clerked for Judge Laurence H. Silberman of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and for Associate Justice Antonin Scalia of the U.S. Supreme Court. After his clerkships, he worked as an associate in the Washington, D.C., office of Kirkland & Ellis. Clement went on to serve as Chief Counsel of Subcommittee on the Constitution, Federalism and Property Rights of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. Afterwards, he was a partner in the Washington, D.C., office of King & Spalding, where he headed the firm's appellate practice. Mr. Clement also served from 1998 to 2004 as an Adjunct Professor at the Georgetown University Law Center, where he taught a seminar on the separation of powers.

Clement joined the United States Department of Justice in February of 2001. Before his confirmation as Solicitor General, he served as Acting Solicitor General for nearly a year and as Principal Deputy Solicitor General. He has argued over 25 cases before the United States Supreme Court, including McConnell v. FEC, Tennessee v. Lane, Rumsfeld v. Padilla, United States v. Booker, Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, Rumsfeld v. FAIR, Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, and Gonzales v. Raich. He also argued many of the key cases in the lower courts involving challenges to the President's conduct of the war on terrorism.