While conservatives may not be excited about the president’s bevy of new cabinet picks, they can celebrate the great solicitor general picks by two newly elected state attorneys general.
I am proud to know both these new SGs personally, and can testify to them being great people, above and beyond their exceptional resumés.
Incoming West Virginia AG Patrick Morrisey has tapped Elbert Lin as his SG. Lin is a Yale Law School alumnus, serving as editor of the law review. He went on to litigate for DOJ, achieved the trifecta of clerking at the trial and appellate levels before landing a Supreme Court clerkship with Justice Clarence Thomas, and most recently worked at Wiley Rein as a partner.
Tim Fox, incoming Montana AG, has hired Lawrence VanDyke, a classmate of mine at Harvard who distinguished himself there as an editor of the Law Review and has continued on to do excellent work as a clerk on the D.C. Circuit, as an attorney at Gibson Dunn, and most recently as assistant solicitor general for the State of Texas I’m sure he will be as excited to return to his native Montana as they will be pleased to welcome him home.