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Donald Verrilli Jr. Biography

Donald Verrilli Jr.

Donald Beaton Verrilli Jr. (born June 29, 1957) is an American lawyer who served as the Solicitor General of the United States from 2011 into 2016. He was sworn into the post on June 9, 2011. On June 6, 2011, the United States Senate confirmed Verrilli in a 72–16 vote. President Barack Obama had nominated Verrilli to the post on January 26, 2011. Verrilli previously served in the Obama administration as the Associate Deputy United States Attorney General, and as Deputy Counsel to the President. He is currently a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Munger, Tolles & Olson.

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Donald Verrilli Jr. Quotes

One thing I've experienced and I feel really grateful for now that I'm on my way out is that I felt that the justices gave that back to me. I really did. You know, of course, you can have some sharp exchanges. That's the nature of the thing, and that's fine. But really in the main I felt like the tone from them was, "Yeah. We may not agree with you, but we're going to have a discussion about this. " And it did.

Back, Exchanges, Grateful, Justice, Know, May

What we once thought of as necessary and proper reasons for ostracizing and marginalizing gay people, we now understand do not justify that kind of oppression.

Gay, Kind, Ostracizing, People

The cases involving the question of whether U. S. courts should be open to claims of international human rights violations brought by foreign persons against foreign government officials. And the State Department on the one side has got a very consistent and powerful view that U. S. courts should be open to those claims because there needs to be a place in the world where they can be brought. And those human rights norms ought to be real and enforceable, and we ought to be a beacon to the world.

Beacon, Cases, Open, Powerful, Real, Rights

Sometimes one of the justices, because they're, you know, they're brilliant lawyers themselves, can put the question in a particular way so that, even if you've prepared to talk about the topic, the question is put in such an excruciatingly difficult way that there's just no good way to handle it.

Good, Justice, Justices, Topics, Way

I'm arguing for progressive positions on behalf of a progressive administration in front of a court who, before Justice [Antonin] Scalia's death, had a conservative majority that was quite conservative, frankly.

Administration, Behalf, Conservative, Justice, Majority

Watch what happens on Twitter. One thing leads to another very quickly. And in an ironic sense, even though it's such a democratic form of communication, there's a funny way in which it leads to a hardening of a conventional wisdom much more quickly than might happen if you were reflecting on it a little more.

Communication, Conventional, Hardening, Ironic, Thing, Watches

I do think it's true that a huge amount of the oversight that the White House engages in with respect to the Executive Branch is out of fear that somebody's going to do something crazy and drive the president off a cliff.

Crazy, Engages, Oversight, Thinking, White

The moot court process in our office when we get ready, we - everybody, including the SG, does two moot courts for each argument. And they are phenomenal, and they predict 90 percent of the questions that I get asked, at least 90 percent.

Doe, Office, Phenomenal, Predict, Questions, Two

I think what happened is that everybody's impressions got formed in those first few minutes. And I felt like, by the latter part of it, I kind of clawed my way back into the discussion. But everybody's impressions were set at the beginning. And wholly apart from me and whether I was good or bad, you know, there were a lot of hostile questions.

Back, Firsts, Kind, Questions, Thinking, Way

The part that the public sees is the arguments up at the podium and the briefs that we file. But a significant part of the job - in fact, I'd say I spend more of my time on this part of the job, which is deciding what the position of the United States will be in the cases that we're going to be participating in before the court.

Facts, Jobs, Participating, Time, United, United States

Very quickly the lawyers in the Justice Department pulled together a set of recommendations about how we ought to defend the law as a constitutional matter. And it was the lawyers in the Justice Department who thought that it was important to include the tax power argument as part of it.

Important, Justice, Law, Matter, Power

In the past, presidents had been consulted about those kinds of decisions by SGs, and I thought it was the right thing to do.

Decision, Decisions, Kinds, Past, President, Thing

Quite often there's a great deal of disagreement within the executive branch about what we should do. Some cases are pretty straightforward, but a lot of them aren't.

Branch, Branches, Deal, Executive Branch, Pretty, Should

My job was always to pull a vote over from somebody who was likely to be at least at the outset disinclined to agree with me on some things or at least disinclined to agree with the policy that I was defending.

Jobs, Likely, Policy, Pull, Vote

People have got to make their best calls in what they think about a case when they're covering it. But I do think the lesson there, and I guess stating the obvious, that oral argument can as often send a false signal as an accurate signal about where the thing is going.

Argument, Covering, People, Signal, Thinking

I did think Justice [Antony] Kennedy's opinion on Lawrence was critical to that because it really, what Lawrence in one sense was, of course, about consensual sex being something that the government can't regulate. But really in a more fundamental sense, what it was saying, "Look. Gay people are normal people, and they get to live normal lives. They're not criminals by virtue of the fact of being gay. "

Critical, Fundamental, Gay, Look, Sex, Thinking

There was only really one time that I had a substantive interaction with the president [Barak Obama] directly, and that was in 2013 when we were deciding whether to file a brief in the first gay marriage case, the Perry against Hollingsworth case. That was a weighty decision about whether the United States government was going to come in and say that heightened scrutiny ought to apply and some state bans on same-sex marriage ought to be unconstitutional. And that was the one time in my tenure where I thought I ought not make this decision without talking to the president.

Decision, Gay, Government, Sex, Unconstitutional, Weighty

I don't think this is a situation where you can say that Congress was avoiding any mention of the tax power. It'd be one thing if Congress explicitly disavowed an exercise of the tax power. But given that it hasn't done so, it seems to me that it's - not only is it fair to read this as an exercise of the tax power, but this court has got an obligation to construe it as an exercise of the tax power if it can be upheld on that basis.

Construe, Done, Exercise, Tax, Thing, Thinking

I think what Lawrence did was provide an assurance that gay and lesbian couples could live openly in society as free people and start families and raise families and participate fully in their communities without fear. And two things flowed from that, I think. One is that has brought us to the point where we understand now in a way even that we did not fully understand in Lawrence, that gay and lesbian people and gay and lesbian couples are full and equal members of the community.

Couple, Families, Free, Gay, Thinking

I do a little bit of hand-holding on the big cases. You know, like health care, I'll call over and say, "Don't worry. We've got it under control. We have the best people working on it. We're on schedule. Stay calm. " So, those kinds of things.

Hands, Know, People, Things, Working, Worry

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