Neil M. Gorsuch, a 1991 graduate of Harvard Law School, was sworn in today as the 113th justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. He was confirmed by the Senate on Friday and succeeds the late Antonin Scalia ‘60, who died in February 2016.
Gorsuch previously served as judge on the U. S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit. President George W. Bush nominated him to that court in 2006.
“On behalf of Harvard Law School, I congratulate Justice Gorsuch and thank him for his devotion to public service and the administration of justice,” said Dean Martha Minow. “He will be thoughtful and fair, and he will bring to the Court his deep and abiding respect for the Constitution and laws of the United States.”
Gorsuch returned to Harvard Law School in 2009 to speak to students as part of the Traphagen Distinguished Alumni Speakers Series, a series that invites noted HLS alumni back to campus to speak about their careers.
While a student at HLS, he was an editor on the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy.
After graduating cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1991, Gorsuch served as a law clerk for Judge David B. Sentelle, on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. He was also a law clerk for Associate Justice Byron R. White and Associate Justice Anthony M. Kennedy ’61 of the U.S. Supreme Court, from 1993 to 1994. Gorsuch worked in private practice for a decade. From 2005 to 2006, he was principal deputy to the associate attorney general and acting associate attorney general at the U.S. Department of Justice.