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Theodore B. Olson

Theodore B. Olson was Solicitor General of the United States from 2001-2004 and was Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Office of Legal Counsel in the U.S. Department of Justice from 1981 to 1984. Except for those two intervals, since 1965 he has been a lawyer with Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in Los Angeles and in Washington, D.C., where he is currently a partner and Co-Chair of the Appellate and Constitutional Law Group.

Mr. Olson is one of the nation’s premier appellate and United States Supreme Court advocates. He has argued 58 cases in the Supreme Court, including Bush v. Palm Beach County Canvassing Board and Bush v. Gore, stemming from the 2000 presidential election. He has prevailed in more than 75 percent of his arguments before the Supreme Court.

Protection and Due Process Clauses; sentencing; jury trial rights; punitive damages; takings of property and just compensation; the Commerce Clause; taxation; immigration; criminal law; copyright; antitrust; securities; telecommunications; the environment; the internet; and other federal constitutional and statutory questions.

As Solicitor General, Mr. Olson was the Government’s principal advocate in the United States Supreme Court, responsible for supervising and coordinating all appellate litigation of the United States, and was a legal adviser to the President and the Attorney General. As Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel during the Reagan Administration, Mr. Olson was the Executive Branch’s principal legal adviser, rendering legal guidance to the President and to the heads of the Executive Branch departments on a wide range of constitutional and federal statutory questions, and assisting in formulating and articulating the Executive Branch’s position on constitutional issues.

Mr. Olson has served as private counsel to two Presidents, Ronald W. Reagan and George W. Bush, in addition to serving those two Presidents in high-level positions in the Department of Justice. He has twice received the United States Department of Justice’s Edmund J. Randolph Award, its highest award for public service and leadership. He has also been awarded the Department of Defense’s highest civilian award for his advocacy in the courts of the United States, including the Supreme Court, on behalf of that Department. He was a visiting scholar at the National Constitution Center in 2007.

Mr. Olson served in the President’s Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board from 2006 to 2008. He is Co-Chair of the Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy. He is also a member of the Board of Trustees on the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and a member of The Steering Committee on The Sandra Day O’Connor Project on the State of the Judiciary.

Mr. Olson is a Fellow of both the American College of Trial Lawyers and the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers. The National Law Journal has repeatedly listed him as one of America’s Most Influential Lawyers. The American Lawyer and Legal Times have characterized Mr. Olson as one of America’s leading advocates. In December of 2007, Washingtonian magazine listed him as number one on its list of the finest lawyers in the nation’s capital. The New York Times columnist William Safire has described Mr. Olson as this generation’s “most persuasive advocate” before the Supreme Court and “the most effective Solicitor General” in decades.

Mr. Olson received his law degree in 1965 from the University of California at Berkeley (Boalt Hall) where he was a member of the California Law Review and Order of the Coif. He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of the Pacific, where he was recognized as the outstanding graduating student in both forensics and journalism. Mr. Olson has written and lectured extensively on appellate advocacy, oral communication in the courtroom, civil justice reform, punitive damages, and constitutional and administrative law.