Based in the Washington, D.C. office of Munger, Tolles & Olson, Ms. Anders has argued 18 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Ms. Anders joined the firm from the U.S. Department of Justice, where she served as an Assistant to the U.S. Solicitor General and a Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Counsel. During her nearly eight-year tenure as an Assistant to the Solicitor General, Ms. Anders represented the United States before the U.S. Supreme Court in a wide range of noteworthy cases, formulating the United States’ position before the High Court and consulting on the government’s appellate strategy in the lower courts. She has extensive experience in intellectual property law, particularly patent law, as well as transnational litigation and the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, administrative law and constitutional law. In addition to her numerous arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court, Ms. Anders authored the government’s briefs in 35 cases at the merits stage and in hundreds of cases at the certiorari stage.
Ms. Anders represented the United States in the most significant patent cases decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in recent years. She argued for the government in Teva Pharmaceuticals v. Sandoz, which established the standard for appellate review of factual findings in patent claim construction, and Commil v. Cisco Systems and Limelight Networks v. Akamai Technologies, both of which concerned the scope of liability for inducement of patent infringement. Ms. Anders also wrote the government’s briefs in the landmark line of patent-eligibility cases that began with Bilski v. Kappos and continued through Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank. In other areas of law, Ms. Anders wrote the government’s briefs in Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, Zivotofsky v. Kerry, Bank Markazi v. Peterson and American Express Co. v. Italian Colors Restaurant. She has worked extensively with numerous federal agencies, including the Patent and Trademark Office and the Departments of State and Treasury. Before joining the firm, Ms. Anders spoke on numerous patent-focused panels, including at the Federal Circuit Bar Association conference and the Florida IP Association conference.
Following her tenure as Assistant to the Solicitor General, Ms. Anders served as a Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel. In that role, she authored opinions resolving questions of law within the Executive Branch and supervised the office’s provision of constitutional comments on pending legislation. She also provided advice to the White House and federal agencies on constitutional and statutory questions, including matters concerning the separation of powers, the scope of Executive Branch authority under various federal statutes, and administrative procedure.
Before joining the Office of the Solicitor General, Ms. Anders practiced appellate litigation, with an emphasis on copyright and commercial law, at a major law firm in Washington, D.C. While there, she represented death-sentenced inmates in challenges to lethal injection, obtaining victories before district courts in California and Missouri. As a result of those cases, both states made significant changes to their lethal injection procedures.
Ms. Anders was recently recognized by Chambers USA, with a Band 2 ranking in nationwide appellate law. In 2017, she was named a “D.C. Rising Star” by the National Law Journal, which recognized her as one of the top 40 lawyers in the region under the age of 40.