University of Virginia School of Law professor and Virginia Solicitor General Toby J. Heytens, a 2000 alumnus of the school, has been nominated to serve as a judge on the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The White House also announced the nominations of alumni Patricia Tolliver Giles ’98 and Michael S. Nachmanoff ’95 to serve on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.

Heytens has been on leave from the Law School since February 2018 to serve as Virginia’s solicitor general. In that role, he successfully argued before the U.S. Supreme Court twice and represented the state on numerous other matters in the Supreme Court of Virginia and federal circuit courts. In 2019, he and his colleagues won the National Association of Attorneys General’s Supreme Court Best Brief Award for the brief filed in Virginia House of Delegates v. Bethune-Hill.

Heytens first joined the faculty in 2006 and then rejoined in 2010 after taking leave for three years to serve in the Office of the U.S. Solicitor General, during which he argued six cases before the Supreme Court. An expert in civil procedure, constitutional torts, criminal procedure and remedies, Heytens has served as one of the directors of the Supreme Court Litigation Clinic.

Before joining the UVA Law faculty, Heytens worked in the Supreme Court and Appellate Practice Group at O’Melveny & Myers in Washington, D.C. After graduating from law school, he clerked for then-Chief Judge Edward R. Becker of the Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, served as a Bristow Fellow in the Solicitor General’s Office, and clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

During law school, Heytens served as articles development editor of the Virginia Law Review and received the Alumni Association Award for Academic Excellence for having the highest grade point average in his graduating class. His student note, “School Choice and State Constitutions,” received the Alumni Association Best Note Award.

Heytens has long served as head coach of UVA’s undergraduate trial advocacy team, which won its third national championship during the 2016-17 season. He won a Raven Award in 2015 for “excellence in service and contribution to the University of Virginia” and an All-University Teaching Award in 2016.

Heytens received his B.A. from Macalester College in 1997.

Both Giles and Nachmanoff once clerked for judges on the U.S. District Court they are now nominated to join.

Giles is currently managing assistant U.S. attorney in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia. She previously served as assistant U.S. attorney in the Major Crimes Unit from 2003, when she joined the office, to 2019. Prior to that she was as associate at Cooley Godward, and clerked for Judge Gerald Bruce Lee on the Eastern District. Giles is a Double Hoo; she earned her B.A. from UVA in 1995.

Nachmanoff has served as a U.S. magistrate judge for the Eastern District of Virginia since 2015. He has previously served as chief federal public defender in the Office of the Federal Public Defender, and as a partner at Cohen, Gettings & Dunham. After law school he clerked for Judge Leonie Brinkema on the Eastern District. Nachmanoff received his B.A. from Wesleyan University in 1991.

Founded in 1819, the University of Virginia School of Law is the second-oldest continuously operating law school in the nation. Consistently ranked among the top law schools, Virginia is a world-renowned training ground for distinguished lawyers and public servants, instilling in them a commitment to leadership, integrity and community service.

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