Neal Katyal

Neal Kumar Katyal ( born March 12, 1970) is an American lawyer. Between 17 May 2010, and 9 June 2011, he served as United States Solicitor General, who represents the federal government before the Supreme Court of the United States. In this office he was succeeded by interim basis Elena Kagan, who was nominated by U.S. President Barack Obama as a judge for the Supreme Court of the United States.

Katyal is the son of Indian immigrants. He attended Dartmouth College until 1991 and then studied until 1995 at Yale Law School. He later worked for Stephen Breyer, a Supreme Court judge. He was one of the lawyers of Al Gore in the Bush v. Gore case before the Supreme Court, whose verdict the U.S. presidential election in 2000 was decided in favor of George W. Bush. In 2003, he represented the rectors of the most important private law schools before the Supreme Court in the case of Grutter v. Bollinger.

Katyal, Professor of Law at Georgetown University and was a guest lecturer at Harvard University and Yale University. In 2006 he was elected by Lawyers USA for " Lawyer of the Year ". The American Lawyer magazine also selected him as one of the 50 best lawyers, the Washingtonian Magazine as one of the 30 best lawyers in the Supreme Court and the Legal Times as one of the 90 best lawyers in the last 30 years. In 2004, he won the Pro Bono Award from the National Law Journal.

On 24 January 2011 Donald Verrilli was nominated by President Obama as the new Solicitor General. After confirmation by the Senate, he broke from Katyal in June of the same year in office. This now acts as his first deputy ( Principal Deputy Solicitor General ).