Excellent.
—Justice Brett Kavanaugh

Todd Kim is a nationally leading appellate and environmental litigator. He most recently served as the Assistant Attorney General confirmed by the Senate to oversee the Environment and Natural Resources Division at the U.S. Department of Justice. He previously served as the first Solicitor General of the District of Columbia and Deputy General Counsel at the U.S. Department of Energy.

With decades of high-level public-sector experience, Todd brings deep experience in conducting complex litigation and has represented clients in high-stakes matters across the nation. He has broad generalist experience as an appellate advocate, having argued and won in diverse matters before the U.S. Supreme Court, all 13 U.S. Courts of Appeals, and state appellate courts. He also has particular experience in today’s most important environmental and administrative-law issues from his tenure as the federal government’s top environmental lawyer. Todd previously gained significant private-sector experience as a law firm partner. He has represented clients in a wide range of industries, including finance, insurance, pharmaceuticals, private equity, telecommunications and transportation, and in litigation matters spanning antitrust, arbitration, commercial disputes, constitutional, criminal, statutory, tort and other topics.

Representative Experience

  • As Solicitor General of the District of Columbia, oversaw all appellate litigation on behalf of the District of Columbia government and personally handled and argued select significant appeals before the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, the D.C. Court of Appeals, and other courts.
  • As Assistant Attorney General for the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, led 600 attorneys and professional staff, directly ran select matters, and established federal policies and enforcement priorities in all major areas of environmental law.
  • Presented oral argument more than 60 times.

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  • Experience as Assistant Attorney General
    • Represented the Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Department of the Interior, and other federal agencies in matters involving climate change, environmental justice, forever chemicals, petitions for review of significant rulemakings under pollution control statutes, federal land management, and additional priority issues.
    • Handled a broad range of environmental law, natural resources law, administrative law, and Native American law issues, garnering intimate and up-to-date knowledge of the federal court system.
    • Developed specialized expertise in cutting-edge administrative law issues.
  • Experience as Solicitor General
    • Oversaw all aspects of appellate litigation in hundreds of appeals per year in a variety of subject matters in civil, administrative, and criminal law.
    • Received two “Best Brief” awards from the National Association of Attorneys General.
    • Nominated to serve on the D.C. Court of Appeals.
  • Select Appeals
    • Doe v. BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee, 926 F.3d 235 (6th Cir. 2019) (affirming dismissal of disparate-impact class action against health care plan)
    • District of Columbia v. Wesby, 583 U.S. 48 (2018) (ruling that arrests were supported by probable cause under the Fourth Amendment and that officers possessed qualified immunity against liability)
    • Expedia v. District of Columbia, 120 A.3d 623 (D.C. 2015) (requiring online travel companies to pay the District of Columbia more than $60 million in sales taxes for hotel rooms they booked)
    • Heller v. District of Columbia, 801 F.3d 264 (D.C. 2015) (upholding against Second Amendment challenge the District of Columbia’s long-gun registration requirement and certain other regulations)
    • Heller v. District of Columbia, 670 F.3d 1244 (D.C. Cir. 2011) (rejecting a Second Amendment challenge to a handgun registration requirement and bans on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, over a dissenting opinion (Kavanaugh, J.) that recognized “the excellent Solicitor General for D.C.”)
    • Jackson v. D.C. Bd. of Elections & Ethics, 999 A.2d 89 (D.C. 2010) (en banc) (upholding the rejection of an initiative to ban same-sex marriage)
    • Carabell v. U.S. Army Corps of Eng’rs, 547 U.S. 715 (2006) (consolidated with Rapanos v. United States) (considering whether the Clean Water Act requires a permit for the filling of a wetland adjacent to but separated by a berm from a tributary of a navigable water)
    • Utah Ass’n of Counties v. Bush, 455 F.3d 1094 (10th Cir. 2006) (dismissing a challenge to the President’s establishment of the 1.7 million-acre Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah on standing grounds)
    • Cayuga Indian Nation v. Pataki, 413 F.3d 266 (2d Cir. 2005) (defending a $248 million judgment to two Native American tribes against the State of New York for illegal acquisition of the tribes’ reservation)
    • United States v. Duke Energy Corp., 411 F.3d 539 (4th Cir. 2005), rev’d, 127 S. Ct. 1423 (2007) (reversing a judgment that construction projects at a utility’s coal-fired power plants did not trigger the New Source Review provisions of the Clean Air Act and thus did not require the installation of pollution controls costing hundreds of millions of dollars)
    • General Electric Co. v. EPA, 360 F.3d 188 (D.C. Cir. 2004) (considering jurisdiction to hear a constitutional challenge to the Superfund statute, brought to undermine the ongoing cleanup of massive PCB contamination in the upper Hudson River)
    • United States v. Shell Oil Co., 294 F.3d 1045 (9th Cir. 2002) (determining liability for a $100 million cleanup of a Superfund site contaminated by the manufacture of aviation gasoline during World War II)
    • United States v. Chemetco, 274 F.3d 1154 (7th Cir. 2001) (affirming a $4 million fine levied against a corporation for criminal violations of the Clean Water Act)

Professional Highlights

  • Fellow, American College of Environmental Lawyers
  • Member, American Law Institute
  • Master, Edward Coke Appellate Inn of Court

Education

  • J.D., Harvard Law School

    B.A., Harvard University

Admissions

  • District of Columbia

    California

Courts

  • U.S. Supreme Court

    U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit

    U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit

    U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit

    U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit

    U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit

    U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit

Clerkships

  • Law Clerk, Judge Judith Rogers, U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit