Donald B. Verrilli Jr.

Donald B. Verrilli, Jr. is a partner with Munger, Tolles & Olson, and the founder of its Washington, D.C., office.

Don is one of the nation’s premier Supreme Court and appellate advocates. He served as Solicitor General of the United States from June 2011 to June 2016. Since joining the firm after his government service, he has handled numerous significant cases in the U.S. Supreme Court, including his successful defense of the constitutionality of the federal law establishing the Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico in Financial Oversight and Management Board v. Aurelius. He has also won victories for clients in high-stakes class action, antitrust, constitutional, government contracts and copyright appeals.

During his time as Solicitor General, he argued dozens of cases before the Supreme Court, including landmark decisions upholding the Affordable Care Act (National Federation of Independent Businesses v. Sebelius and King v. Burwell) and recognizing marriage equality (Obergefell v. Hodges). Don also achieved victories in two important patent cases, Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank and Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, in a case vindicating the president’s foreign affairs authority in Zivotofsky v. Kerry, and in numerous cases involving civil rights, women’s rights and other matters of national importance involving antitrust, copyright, telecommunications, the environment, the First Amendment, the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment, the separation of powers, criminal law and other federal constitutional and statutory matters.

In addition to handling matters before the U.S. Supreme Court and the courts of appeals, Don’s practice focuses on representing and counseling clients on multi-dimensional problems, where litigation, regulation and public policy intersect to shape markets and industries in our evolving economy. He is recognized as a Star Individual by Chambers USA and was named “Lawyer of the Year” for his appellate work in the 2026 edition of The Best Lawyers in America.

Before serving as Solicitor General, Don served as Deputy White House Counsel, and previously as Associate Deputy Attorney General in the U.S. Department of Justice. In those positions, he counseled President Obama, Cabinet secretaries and other senior government officials on a wide range of legal issues involving national security, economic regulation, domestic policy and the scope of executive and administrative authority.

Prior to his government service, Don spent two decades in private practice representing companies in high stakes matters, particularly in the areas of media and entertainment, and telecommunications law. During this time, he argued a dozen cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, including MGM Studios, Inc. v. Grokster, the landmark case establishing that file sharing services were subject to the copyright laws, and FCC v. NextWave, which established that the bankruptcy laws allow FCC licensees to keep their licenses while reorganizing. He also achieved a landmark victory before the U.S. Supreme Court in Wiggins v. Smith, a case that established the standards for effective assistance of counsel in capital sentencing proceedings.

Don is also a Lecturer in Law at Columbia Law School, where he teaches classes on the First Amendment and on the Supreme Court. Previously he taught First Amendment law for many years at the Georgetown University Law Center.