Chris Baldacci ’22 To Clerk at U.S. Supreme Court

Chris Baldacci, a 2022 graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law, will clerk for Justice Clarence Thomas at the U.S. Supreme Court during the 2026 term.

Baldacci is currently an associate working at Williams & Connolly in Washington, D.C. He previously clerked for Judge Neomi Rao of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and Judge Jerry E. Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

The Law School is No. 5 after Harvard, Yale, Stanford and Chicago in placing clerks on the U.S. Supreme Court from the 2007 through 2024 terms. Three alumni are clerking during the 2024 term: Erin Brown ’21 with Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Rachel Daley ’21 with Justice Neil Gorsuch and Katharine Janes J.D.-MA ’21 with Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. UVA Law is third in the nation after Harvard and Yale in the number of clerks at the Supreme Court in 2024.

As a student at UVA Law, Baldacci won the 93rd William Minor Lile Moot Court Competition with teammate Michael Patton ’22 and received the Stephen Pierre Traynor Award for best oralist. He also won Best Appellate Brief Award in Legal Research and Writing II, and won second place in the competition for the Brown Award for Excellence in Legal Writing for his Virginia Law Review note “The Common Law of Interpretation.” Additionally, Baldacci was an articles editor on the Virginia Law Review, a participant in the Supreme Court Litigation Clinic, an Order of the Coif inductee and a research assistant to Professor Saikrishna Prakash. He participated in an independent study with Professor Caleb Nelson.

“I had so many amazing professors who taught me to think holistically about the law and who challenged me to think deeply about hard problems and always question assumptions about everything,” Baldacci said. “The Supreme Court clinic was a great opportunity to write briefs, get into the justices’ heads, and think about how decisions are made at the court and what kind of arguments are persuasive.”

In addition to Nelson and Prakash, Baldacci also credits Professors Aditya Bamzai, Joshua Fischman, George S. Geis, Daniel Ortiz, Richard Re, Frederick Schauer (who died in September) and Micah Schwartzman ’05; lecturer Jeremy Marwell; and former professor Kimberly Kessler Ferzan for contributing to his success.

“Chris is a deep and creative legal thinker,” said Re, who advised Baldacci on his award-winning note. “His student note makes a grand contribution to scholarly debates on legal interpretation, and I have drawn on the note in my own work. It was a pleasure to watch this project grow from a seminar paper topic to a final published product.”

Baldacci said his classmates also sharpened his problem-solving skills and thinking about how the law should work through conversations in the hallway and debates around the library tables. Alumni played a role in his career path, as well. Baldacci recalled talking to Andrew Ferguson ’12, who now works at the Federal Trade Commission, at an admitted students open house about Ferguson’s clerkship for Thomas.

“I do remember distinctly thinking, wow, that would be an incredible opportunity, but I didn’t think it was super realistic that I would have the same opportunity someday,” Baldacci said.

Baldacci said he’s excited to read briefs from and watch the best advocates in the country during his clerkship.

“Very few lawyers get the opportunity to work with the justices and to see firsthand how they’re coming to their decisions and all the work that goes into getting the right answer in these really tough cases,” he said.

Baldacci, of Winfield, Illinois, earned his bachelor’s degree from Patrick Henry College.