Toby J. Heytens

Toby Heytens is a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. He was nominated by President Joe Biden on July 13, 2021, and confirmed by the Senate on Nov. 1, 2021, receiving his commission on Nov. 2.

Heytens is a graduate and former faculty member of the University of Virginia School of Law. He first joined the faculty in 2006 and then rejoined it in 2010 after having spent three years working in the Office of the U.S. Solicitor General and arguing six cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. He took leave from the faculty to serve as Virginia’s solicitor general from 2018-2021.

At UVA Law, he taught courses on civil procedure, constitutional torts, criminal procedure and remedies. He also served as one of the directors of the Supreme Court Litigation Clinic.

Heytens received a Raven Award in 2015 for “excellence in service and contribution to the University of Virginia” and an All-University Teaching Award in 2016.

After graduating from law school, Heytens clerked for then-Chief Judge Edward R. Becker of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, served as a Bristow Fellow in the Solicitor General’s Office, and then clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. He next spent several years working at O’Melveny & Myers in Washington, D.C., where his practice focused on appellate litigation.