November 11, 2022 – Washington, DC -- Jenner & Block is pleased to announce that appellate litigator Zachary C. Schauf has been appointed Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the US Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel.
"Zach is an incredibly talented lawyer and in bringing him on, the DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel has hired one of the finest lawyers of his generation," said Jenner & Block Co-Managing Partners Katya Jestin and Randy Mehrberg. "We wish him all the best in his new role and know that he will be a tremendous asset to Attorney General Garland and the administration."
Mr. Schauf has briefed and argued cases in appellate courts throughout the country and before the US Supreme Court. He argued Oklahoma v Castro-Huerta in 2022 and led the briefing in McGirt v Oklahoma, the Supreme Court's landmark decision affirming the Muscogee (Creek) Nation's reservation in eastern Oklahoma. He also co-authored winning Supreme Court briefs in several other cases, including Kokesh v SEC, Honeycutt v. United States, and Harris v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission, and he has played a lead role in the firm's defense of the Indian Child Welfare Act in Haaland v. Brackeen, which was argued this week.
Mr. Schauf was the lead litigator in North Carolina League of Conservation Voters v Hall, in which a Jenner team helped secure free and fair election maps and persuaded the North Carolina Supreme Court to invalidate the state legislature's maps as unconstitutional partisan gerrymanders. This case, now combined with two others as Moore v Harper, will be heard by the Supreme Court on December 7, 2022.
"Zach has tremendous knowledge of the law, but even more importantly, he is an excellent legal strategist," said Ian Heath Gershengorn, Chair of Jenner & Block's Appellate and Supreme Court Practice and former Acting Solicitor General of the United States. "His ability to navigate complex and thorny legal challenges is remarkable and will serve him well in the Office of Legal Counsel. I wish Zach well in this new role and look forward to our paths crossing often in the future."
Prior to his work at Jenner & Block, Mr. Schauf clerked for Attorney General Garland, then a justice of the United States Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, and US Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan. He received his JD, summa cum laude, from Harvard Law School, where he graduated first in his class and served as president of the Harvard Law Review.