A Talk With U.S. Deputy Solicitor General Edwin S. Kneedler ’74

LESLIE KENDRICK: Good afternoon. I'm Leslie Kendrick. I'm the dean of the law school. And I am delighted to welcome all of you here today. First-time visitors, longtime friends, students, faculty, alumni, staff, it is wonderful to see all of you and to welcome you to this lecture and conversation with our 2025 Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medalist in Law Mr. Edwin Kneedler.

Before I introduce Mr. Kneedler, I'd like to thank a few people who've made this event possible-- Rebecca Klaff and Laurel Owens on our events team, Grace Cleveland from the dean's office for coordinating and organizing today's events, everyone on our communications, law, IT, building services teams, the custodial staff for everything they've done to make this beautiful event a reality. Thank you also to the family members who've joined us today to celebrate Mr. Kneedler. We're so glad to have you with us.

And finally, it is my great privilege to introduce the honorable Edwin S. Kneedler, the 2025 recipient of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medal in Law. Mr. Kneedler has served our country for half a century as a distinguished appellate advocate in the Office of the Solicitor General, which represents the interests of the United States government before the Supreme Court of the United States.

The child and grandchild of teachers, Mr. Kneedler was raised in the suburbs of Philadelphia. In 1963, he graduated from North Penn High School, where he ran track and cross country, played in the high school band, and served as a yearbook editor. He then attended Lehigh University, where he was a member of the Delta Upsilon fraternity and earned his bachelor's degree in economics in 1967.

Mr. Kneedler's commitment to serving others was evident from the very beginning of his professional career. After college, he joined Volunteers in Service to America, serving first at a job center for disadvantaged youth and then with a program for migrant farm workers. Mr. Kneedler has described his years as a VISTA volunteer as life-altering.

In 1971, Mr. Kneedler enrolled here at the University of Virginia School of Law. He flourished at the law school, serving as a member of the Virginia Law Review. He began his legal career with a clerkship for Judge James R. Browning of the US Supreme-- or excuse me, US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He then joined the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel in 1975 and, subsequently, the Office of the Solicitor General in 1979. His dedication and expertise led him to become deputy solicitor general in 1993, a position he has held with distinction for over three decades. In 2009, he served briefly as acting solicitor general of the United States.

Over the course of his career, Mr. Kneedler has argued over 150 cases before the Supreme Court of the United States, a remarkable achievement unmatched by any living lawyer currently in practice. He's represented the United States in some of the most consequential Supreme Court cases of our time, including National Federation of Independent Business versus Sebelius, which upheld the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, Lujan versus Defender of-- Defenders of Wildlife, a landmark case on Article III standing, pivotal First Amendment cases from Boos versus Barry in 1988 to Sorrell versus IMS Health Incorporated in 2010, numerous cases involving separation of powers, executive powers, immigration, and international affairs, and nearly all of the Supreme Court cases over the last 40 years involving federal Indian law.

Mr. Kneedler's expertise is so broad and his advocacy skills so deep that he once argued two different Supreme Court cases in a single day, which makes me tired just to think about. Mr. Kneedler's remarkable talent as an advocate has earned the respect and praise of colleagues across the political and jurisprudential spectrums. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, who once served as Mr. Kneedler's colleague in the SG's office, has said, "Whenever Ed is on the brief or is arguing, I know-- and I won't speak for my colleagues, but I bet they all feel the same way-- that we're getting the best possible argument that can be made for the position that he's defending."

Former Solicitor General Paul Clement described Mr. Kneedler as the "consummate public service-- servant." And former Solicitor General Don Verrilli once described Mr. Kneedler as "the institutional conscience of the Office of the Solicitor General." Everything about him embodies the ethos of the office, the principle that the job of the office is to represent the interests of the United States. And that is a nonpartisan obligation.

It is this last characteristic that makes Mr. Kneedler especially deserving of this award as much, if not more so, than the number of cases he has argued. In every case, Mr. Kneedler has represented the United States with honor, fairness, and candor. Across 10 presidential administrations and three chief justices, his commitment has been to the Constitution, the United States, and the rule of law. His deep integrity and his decades of service to our country serve as a shining example for lawyers everywhere.

Now, without further ado, I'm honored to present to you the 2025 Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medalist in Law, the Honorable Edwin S. Kneedler.

[APPLAUSE]

EDWIN S. KNEEDLER: Well, thank you, Dean Kendrick, for those very kind remarks. It is wonderful to be here. And thank you to the law school, too, for welcoming me back and inviting me to be here with you all today. Some corrections or amplifications of the introduction-- I did run track and cross country, but I wasn't very fast.

[LAUGHTER]

And the record of my First Amendment cases-- those were two examples. I think I lost both of those. And I lost most of the First Amendment cases I handled. So it's great to say I argued the landmarks, but not always successfully.

But still, it has been a great privilege to have had the career I have had. It's one serendipitous occasion after another to have gotten to where I am. And it's been an example to me that our lives don't unfold entirely in our control. So much is fortuitous. So much depends on the help of others. So much depends on what has gone before.

And that is particularly true at this institution founded-- at the university founded by Thomas Jefferson and the traditions carried on at this law school and carried on in the university of a recognition of the importance of public service and, among lawyers, the importance of fulfilling the role of being a citizen lawyer dedicated not necessarily your whole career, but in attitude and inclination to public virtue and public good. And I was inspired that when I was here. It has carried me forward in my career. And I look back on that today.

50 years ago, I began my career here. And here I am at my retirement back here again. I've come full circle, back where I started. And it has really filled me with gratitude for my experience here and what I was able to launch, and especially at this moment to be recognized for this medal, which has gone to a long line of people in public life and notables in our profession who have dedicated themselves to that-- to the public good as citizen lawyers.

I've been a career civil servant, not in the press if I can avoid it, and working as a government employee. And I'm proud of that career. But I was surprised and incredibly moved to be asked to receive this award. And because of that and because of my career, I choose to receive this award, for which I am very grateful, as-- and to pass on the recognition of people in public service to all the people who I have worked with over the years.

There are 2 million federal employees. I, obviously, don't know all of them. But in the Department of Justice and in the other departments and agencies I've worked with, I have been impressed and optimistic by the talents, by the dedication, and by the compassion and understanding for our country and dedication to our country of the lawyers who I have worked with, and non-lawyers.

In our office, we have solicitor general's office. A lot of people may not know how it operates. We're small. We have 16 line attorneys, four or five deputy solicitors general, of which I'm one. And we, obviously, can't do that work ourselves. And so in our representation in the Supreme Court, we get recommendations from the various divisions in the Justice Department, recommendations from other agencies and departments.

When we don't have emergencies, like we have a number of now, we have a very structured decision-making process, which some may see as overly bureaucratic. But we normally insist on written recommendations from the agency that's most interested from the component in the Justice Department responsible for that subject matter. It then comes in, whether it's a recommendation or a draft of a brief, to an attorney in our office that then gets reviewed by one of the deputies and by the solicitor general.

And that's an internal due process within the government because those deliberations are all confidential. But the-- having the process be deliberate, people putting their thoughts and recommendations in writing-- when you have to put something in writing, you have to defend it in a way you may not have to If you're just expressing a desire orally. You have to give the reasoning for it.

So over the years, I've come to see that as an important internal foundation for an internal due process and recognition of the rule of law. And career people play an important part of that because they've been around. And they understand the statutes that are at question-- in question or the doctrines that are in question. And as I said, I owe so much to this law school for that.

But I also want to, in particular, thank my family, and particularly Lynn, my wife, who has supported me, been with me, been patient with me, mostly, and-- but really understanding of the importance of this career to me and to be helpful in all of that and to take on a lot of the responsibility of our family.

And I also want to thank my daughters, who are not here at the moment, who will be here tomorrow, for their patience and understanding. I missed a lot of dinners and weekends and games that I wish I hadn't. And that's something I would encourage the students here to bear in mind. Don't do what I did, I guess, is what I'm saying.

And I also want to give a shout-out to my brother, who taught here for 50 years and really encouraged me to go to law school. And then not only that, he took me in my first year in law school. He put me up, rather than when we were growing up, he put up with me. It was the other way around. And I'm very, very grateful for what he did.

And I also want to thank my sister, not a lawyer. But she encouraged me in everything in life and had my back in my life as I went through it in tough times. So family-- women, in particular-- are really, really an important part of my own story.

But also, as I mentioned, beyond family, there are all the people in the government over the years who have worked hard, who were all part of a team. As I said, I-- we can't do this alone. And in our office are a small number of people who are highly competitive, mostly highly successful. And yet the esprit de corps is remarkable for a set of high-powered people, high-powered lawyers. And they feel it as a trust to maintain that esprit de corps.

And people may have ideological differences. They may have all sorts of differences. But they come in and take on a trust of maintaining that spirit in the office, which-- excuse me-- which is really critical and that is on display most vividly in our moot courts, which are rigorous. Every attorney is going to argue-- does two moot courts. Three attorneys from our office who are unfamiliar with the case or not fully familiar with the case are on the panel for each one. And that has a-- in the moot courts, they're asking you tough questions and tear you down. But part of the obligation is to build you up at the end of that and give you the best answers.

And when you go into court, not only do you feel like you've had a rigorous legal preparation with the questions, and they usually anticipate what the justices will ask, you also feel like you have the emotional support of the people in your office. And they're with you. And you know that they're back there.

I remember my first argument before we had moot courts. I felt so lonely because I prepared by myself. I just wish nobody from the office would show up because I didn't know what-- how bad it was going to be. But it doesn't work that way now. And it's really-- shows the importance of deep interactions on a professional level and personal level as a result of that.

And I think versions of that are replicated throughout the government in-- because all of us, in the end, work in a small office or a small component. And I think you will see the mutual support and the understanding and the probing and holding each other account that we have in our office. So I hope in these times that you will appreciate the importance of the career people and in the government who are, in many ways, the foundation of-- as we go forward.

In terms of my experience in the law school and with my retirement, this will be a little bit of reminiscence. But I didn't have the straight path to law school that a lot of people do. When I look at resumes, it looks like people's legal careers were foreordained. I know there's some things left off the resumes, the gaps and stuff, but-- detours along the way. But I didn't even find the starting line until after college and my time in VISTA.

One element of going to VISTA is I dropped out of graduate school in the middle of a semester. Don't do that if you-- it's not the way to begin your career. But I just said, I need to start my life over. And I got on an airplane in Philadelphia. And as the plane was taking off, I said, this is going to change my life. I don't how. It did. And this time as a VISTA volunteer was incredibly important to me. And I do mark it as the beginning of my public service to be taken out of my Pennsylvania German background.

We're all cloistered. Nobody moves out of the county over 200 years to-- across the country to a completely different culture of people who move with the crops from place to place and an enormous sense of responsibility for family and extended family. So many pictures and reminiscence I have of people coming from the Rio Grande Valley in a pickup truck with five kids and three adults. And where are we going to stay? And there's always a family that say, well, stay with us. Sleep on the floor. And so people took care of themselves in a way that I was-- or each other in a way that I was not familiar with.

So I highly recommend doing your law school, and maybe a lot of you have already done it-- is placing yourself in an unfamiliar and uncomfortable place, maybe. And try to make it. And if you're open-hearted, it's probably going to work. And there's no one of those experiences that is the right one. But if it's different from your own, it will give you a representation of the great diversity and wonderful spread of this country. And it did that for me, anyway. And I remember the scenes of the farm workers.

50 years after I left there, we had a case in the Supreme Court about three or four years ago about the constitutionality of a California statute that required growers to permit union organizers to come into the fields to talk to the farm workers about union organizing. And the growers resisted on the ground that it was that-- private property and they could keep them out. And the Fifth Amendment Just Compensation Clause gives landowners a right. But I was just recognizing the isolation of these farm workers in the fields.

And that took me back to one of the inspirations for me to go to law school, which was two of the-- my fellow VISTA volunteers were lawyers and, with the cooperation of Portland, Oregon, law firms-- I was in Portland-- brought suits against growers in the Willamette Valley because the growers were not letting outside people come in to talk to the people who were housed in the camps-- people, public welfare people, friends. And they brought these suits under the anti-peonage laws that were passed after the Civil War in the aftermath of slavery. And they were successful. And this resonated with the-- with my thinking back 50 years earlier with the organizing of the farm workers.

So that was one of the inspirations for law school, in addition to my brother having been here. In law school, I was-- I didn't preface what I said about dropping out of graduate school and all that with the fact that my academic career as an undergraduate I would not call stellar, exactly. I was first time away from home. And I didn't apply myself, as my grandmother used to say.

So when I came to law school, I was determined to redeem myself, to turn it around and make-- and really learn something and do the best I could. So I worked really hard. And I loved it. I was a law nerd. And this room is probably filled 2/3 with law nerds. But it was really true. And I continue to be a law nerd.

And I have great memories of professors here and classes I took. One that really stands out because, in many ways, it was improbable was a weekend seminar in Indian law taught by a man by the name of Harry Sachse, who was-- who had been in the solicitor general's office. He did the Indian law work there. And he taught this seminar. What did I know about Indian law? But I took it and was fascinated by it. And it had a huge impact on my life.

When I went to the Office of Legal Counsel-- this was in the mid '70s-- the claims of Eastern Indian tribes were being recognized and that there had to be decisions made about how those tribes would be constituted, how their lands would be organized. And the first of those major Eastern Indian land claims were claims that the tribes in Maine-- I got to work on drafting the bill that established the reservations there-- also got to work on trying to convince Judge Bell, who was then the attorney general, of what the trust responsibility to Indians is.

And this was all foundational stuff that we take for granted now. But it felt like-- at the beginning. And so when I went to the Office of the Solicitor General and Harry Sachse was gone and we had Indian cases, somebody said, does anybody in the office want to do Indian work? I said, I'll do it.

And so that's been, actually, one of the most gratifying pieces of my work since I've been in the solicitor general's office because it's work that affects real people's lives in a way that most other government representation doesn't. It's one step removed. But this has been a remarkable 50 years in the development of Indian law and the development of Indian tribes, their growth in self-determination.

And one of the impressive things about that is for a number of years, I used to go to the annual conference on Indian law sponsored by the Indian section of the Federal Bar Association. And when I first went, I would say it was probably 2/3 non-Indians who were there as the lawyers for tribes. And 15 years later, it was almost entirely Native American lawyers or students.

And it occurred to me, as I was thinking about this and thinking about Jefferson, that they are really carrying on the citizen lawyer tradition in their own tribal situation. And the tribes themselves are carrying on in a mini version, if you will, of the experience of the colonies and the states in the early years of developing their own sense of self-government and the colonies and the states adapting the rule of England, the common law of England, to their particular situations.

And I think tribes continue to decide and exercise the self-determination, what aspects of US law to incorporate and which ones not to. And that has been very, very rewarding. And people go back to their tribes because they want to help in formulating tribal government and helping to educate tribal leaders in developing legal relationships with the states and the federal government.

Law has always been incredibly important to tribes. The Supreme Court has been protective, at least in its pronouncements of tribes. Seminal cases, like Worcester versus Georgia-- those commitments have not always been lived up to. But in part because they haven't been lived up to, what courts say about the law, what the Supreme Court says is of immense symbolic importance, as well as real-world importance, about how laws can affect Indian tribes.

The other areas that I've had the privilege to work in have also come along by happenstance. I've done quite a bit of work over the years in separation of powers and executive powers. And the first two were in my first couple of years in the office as a young assistant to the solicitor general. I was asked to work on Dames & Moore, which is a case involving the president's power to settle monetary claims against other countries. This was the settlement of claims against Iran for the-- in connection with the release of the hostages.

And we would never staff a case this way. But we had to put together a brief, which I mostly wrote over the course of six days with two all-nighters and learning a lot about stuff I didn't know and was afraid I didn't know enough about, about the president's inherent authority, the statutory provisions. And it was rushed. And then the second one I worked on was INS versus Chadha because-- I didn't argue it, but because I'd worked on Dames & Moore. And so that, as I said-- one thing leads to another in life. It did for me. And so I did a lot of the separation of powers work and executive power over the years.

And some of that work, that work-- and because it's separation of powers under the Constitution, it often carries you back to look at what was going on at the time of the founding. Obviously, you look at the founding documents, commentary, the Federalist, and all of that, but also the way people were thinking about or implementing putting the government into operation at that time.

And Mr. Jefferson was involved, or at least present, in a lot of those, not always as a decider-- in fact, often not. But he was present in a lot of those. And I was surprised at, first of all, how intimate the early executive branch was. It was small.

The cabinet members exercised most of the authority. And in cases like Marbury versus Madison-- we all know that as a case involving the court's ability to strike down acts of Congress. But when you read it, it really begins to set the framework of what's the power of the president in relation to the departments in the government. Which things are mandatory? Which things are discretionary?

The president, obviously, has to have discretion in foreign affairs and military and national security, other things maybe not so much. They weren't spelled out in detail. But they are present in Marbury versus Madison because it was necessary to distinguish the ministerial issue that was at stake and reconciling that with the president's broader discretionary powers.

And we also think of the United States versus Burr prosecution of Burr for conspiracy and treason and the question of whether the president had to turn over documents. But that issue arose in what is, in many ways, the more common instance in which we get it now, which is the executive's relationship with Congress. And when does the executive have to turn over information to Congress that's conducting an investigation?

And we have those disagreements with Congress-- people in the room who've worked for the government know this-- all the time-- who want documents, often what we now call classified documents. Back then, they were secret documents. And the first instance of this goes back to 1792 in the aftermath of the disastrous St. Clair expedition into the Northwest Territory. And Congress was investigating that. And they wanted they wanted documents from President Washington about what happened.

And the president said, and Jefferson records this in his papers-- said, what we do here is going to set a precedent for the future. So I want to talk this through and talk about it seriously so we set the right precedent. And they decided to turn over the documents in that case. But everyone was in agreement, including Washington, that it was-- it would be necessary, sometimes, to withhold information from Congress, where necessary, to protect the national security.

The same issue came up after Jefferson had left his position as Secretary of State with respect to the Jay Treaty. The Republicans controlled the House. And they weren't happy, a lot of them, about the Jay Treaty. And they wanted to insert the House as-- to have a role with respect to the implementation of treaties. And they wanted the negotiation documents from the executive about the negotiation of the treaty.

And the president refused to turn it over in a decision the Supreme Court said-- no one has ever doubted the correctness of that. And then Jefferson himself had a similar experience, again, with the Burr conspiracy when Congress was investigating that, requested documents from him. And he declined to turn over some documents that were highly secret. Tellingly, the resolution of the House that asked for that said the president should turn over documents except those which he believed in the public interest should not be turned over, which I think was a early foundation era way of recognizing an executive privilege that the president has to be trusted not to disclose certain secret information.

And it was also done-- I think that was more than just a matter of wording. I think it was a recognition by the Congress that the president's judgment has to be respected. And fights about documents are not necessarily good for anybody. And so the right result, they thought, was the-- excuse me-- the president's exercise of judgment and the political check on what the president may do. And those principles resonate down to the current day. And it was just wonderful to go back and see that the same disputes that we hear about were present.

And then there are a couple other earlier ones, some of them kind of amusing. One was on apportionment of the House of Representatives, which the Constitution says that representatives shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers. So that sounds pretty easy, right? You just do a census. You take the population of the states or the national government, and you divide up representatives and give each state what it's entitled to.

But no, it's not that easy. And over history, there have been five different methods of deciding how to apportion representatives among the states. And finally, in 1941, Congress turned the issue over to the National Academy of Sciences that came up-- I don't know that it's really a mathematical question as much as it is as a public policy one. But it's a combination of the two. And they came up with a particular formula.

But if you go back to 1792, Congress passed the first apportionment bill. And President Washington asked for the opinions of the four cabinet members, which the Constitution provides for the president to ask for opinions, of this bill that was passed so he could decide whether to veto it or not. And the cabinet lined up. And Secretary of War Knox basically said, I haven't had time to look at this. And I don't know anything about this, anyway.

And Jefferson didn't like the-- this particular apportionment. He said because the-- because of the wording of the other aspects of the apportionment clause, it didn't work technically. And besides, who can tell what formula they were using to apportion? And there ought to be a set formula. And he recommended a veto. And Hamilton, of course, opposed what Jefferson wanted. And so Hamilton was saying, oh, no, this is fine.

And so the president asked for these opinions. And you get these one or two-page opinions from everybody else, but not from Jefferson. He wrote an eight or 10-page opinion dissecting the statutory terms, what they could have meant, tables of numbers. I don't know if he was working them out in longhand. I have no idea he did it-- which he delivered himself of the day before the president had to act.

The president ended up vetoing the law. And I don't know whether it was because Jefferson's presentation was overwhelming or persuasive. But Jefferson's view-- the term or how it operates is too hard for me to explain-- but thought that when you divide the total number of representatives into the population, you're going to have fractions left over. What do you do with those? Jefferson said you should drop all the fractions.

But as it turned out, that formula was thought to advantage the large states, of which Virginia was a large state. And others wanted something where you count all the fractions. And that tends to favor the small states. So you can see the potential for this to be worked out.

But I was also thinking about, who better a person to write an eight-page opinion in a couple of days about apportionment than Thomas Jefferson trying to match equal protection or equal representation principles with science and mathematics and come up with a solution to the two? I think Jefferson was the framing or founding era equivalent of turning it over to the National Academy of Sciences.

[LAUGHTER]

And we also had a similar thing with the Recess Appointments Clause, which is another somewhat obscure portion of the Constitution that says the president may fill up vacancies that happen during the recess of the Senate. And so when a-- we had a case involving this, I don't know, 10 years ago, somebody appointed to the National Labor Relations Board who had been-- the vacancy existed before the Senate went in recess. But the-- he was appointed after the Senate went into recess.

So does that fall under the clause that allows the president to appoint someone to a vacancy that happens during the recess? Four Justices of the Supreme Court said, yeah. The only time the president could do that is if the vacancy actually occurs during the tenure-- or during the recess. Others said, no, happens-- you can read it that way if you need to. But it could be-- it could mean happens to exist rather than happens to have begun during the recess.

And I think in defending this, we had an uphill battle textually. But if you go back, recess appointments like this were made beginning in the 1790s. And we had a research project, and it was incredibly difficult because there are no records in such things, to find out when appointments were made, when it became vacant.

And it turns out Thomas Jefferson made several of those. And he was the first public statement that we saw from someone who actually credited the proposition that the text is ambiguous. You could read it either way. And it sounds like Chevron in the 1790s.

But it was-- and so it was just wonderful to see these issues that we come up with now. And they haven't been litigated in the past because no one ever thought you could sue about these things. We went 150 or 200 years. But now that they got into the courts, we're required to go back and look at agency or executive precedent.

So a couple of other things-- one-- another area I worked a lot on is immigration, although I don't have that docket now. When I had that docket, it was mostly individual petitions for review by individual non-citizens. So they had various claims for protection. We had a couple of sensational episode, or at least dramatic episodes, when I was-- when I had that docket. The first was a situation-- and most of this did not pertain to the border.

The first one we had was when there were a lot of migrants from Haiti coming by-- trying to come by boat to the United States in unseaworthy vessels. And the United States Navy would rescue people at sea. But then the naval vessels became a magnet for people to leave Haiti, get past the 12-mile limit, and be picked up by US ships.

And then what? If they wanted asylum, do you have to give them an asylum interview? And eventually, President Clinton issued an order requiring an interdiction and returned to Haiti of people who were found, even though they were being sent back to Haiti-- but because it was life-threatening for people.

But in the meantime, we had court orders saying that we couldn't return people until they had an asylum interview. And so people were taken to Guantanamo. And at one point, there were 25,000 migrants at Guantanamo and-- far beyond capacity. And so we were able to get a stay from the Supreme Court-- remember being on the phone with their clerk's office on a Friday night. And they were saying, is this really urgent? And I-- yes, we have a naval vessel ready to take off if the court grants a stay.

The other one was, and a lot of people in the room here are probably too young to remember this-- was experience with Elián González, who was a five-year-old kid who-- he was coming to the US with his mother and others in a boat. The boat sank. He lost his mother. She drowned. He somehow survived on an inner tube overnight. And there were stories that he was-- that there were dolphins supporting him during this time. It took on a religious, transcendent experience. And he came to the US.

And there was a big disagreement. And it became a pretty big political/cultural disagreement about whether he should be returned to his father in Cuba, which is what the attorney general decided, or the-- his relatives in Miami, who really wanted him to stay. And it brought out what, to me, was, really, a big difference within our country about family because I think a lot of people in the United States who lived here thought the nuclear family is important and this boy should go back to his father. That was the attorney general's view.

But I think for the exile community in Miami and elsewhere, the most important thing was to get your child to freedom. And your extended family will take care of that child in the United States. And so it-- there was a big uproar about it, I think partly because there wasn't much else going on in the world in terms of affairs. And I happened to argue that in the district court and Court of Appeals. And for both arguments, as I was arguing, I could hear the crowds chanting outside. That's how strong the passions were about that.

So the last thing I-- we're short on time. The last thing I wanted to mention was developments of-- in administrative law, which I grew very fond of over the years. It's an odd thing to say, you're fond of administrative law. The title is not the sexiest thing in the world. But obviously, there have been huge changes in that area. The principle of Chevron deference both came and went during my tenure. Chevron was decided about six or seven years after I got to the SG's office.

At the time, nobody thought it was a big deal. It was just another case of courts should defer to agencies when it makes sense to do that, to do so. And the court's description there of when there's ambiguity in a statute, that means it's an implied delegation to the agency-- I don't think the court ever meant that as a doctrinal point. I think it was a descriptive point. If it's ambiguous, the agency is going to have to figure it out.

But it became a doctrinal point about wherever there is ambiguity, there's delegation. And so the court has eliminated that, but has left room for situations where the court-- or where Congress has delegated to the agency the power to construe a statute.

Coinciding with that has been a real emphasis on text. When I was in law school, no one thought about interpretive-- I don't want to say no one. We didn't have courses on statutory interpretation. You just applied common sense. You read it. What was the legislature up to? There's a great quote from Chief Justice Marshall. "Where the mind labors to discover the design of the legislature, it seizes upon everything from which it can be derived."

Well, that's-- oops-- the way I grew up in the law. You just look. What's the purpose here? What makes sense? But now we're textualists. And so a lot of the flexibility in interpreting statutes has gone away. And that and Chevron, I think, are related.

But the most important development, I think, in administrative law has been on the remedy side, nationwide injunctions where a single plaintiff can get an injunction barring the enforcement of a law against anybody in the country. It's sort of a substitute class action without the formalities or protections of a class action.

And the same thing-- courts will often vacate a rule across the board, even when there's only a single plaintiff. And that tends to create an emergency because an important program will have been shut down at the behest of one litigant rather than having it bubble around in various district courts.

And another development has been the ability of states to sue, to challenge federal programs on the basis if the federal government does something, it will have an indirect financial impact on the states, which tends to make cases appear political because when a governmental action gets challenged by a state attorney general of one party against an administration of the opposite party, sometimes you'll have 25 states lined up, all of the same party. And I think it tends to make what the court does seem political.

So those are two developments. And those are our current issues. But I think I'll let it go with that now. And there'll be questions afterwards. But I just wanted to reiterate how grateful I am for, at this full circle point in my career-- to have been recognized with this award. And again, I want to say how important it is to me and to a lot of my colleagues to be recognized-- for me to have them recognized for all the hard work they do and the camaraderie and the dedication and talents that they bring to defending the United States.

But the public good and citizen lawyer doesn't have to be the federal government. It doesn't have to be the federal government for career. I would encourage you to give it a try now or later, or at least to pursue it. But it's all state-- it's also state government. It's also local government. It's also non-government.

This country has been renowned through its history for its private associations and nonprofits of like-minded people who want to do good and do-- and make the world better and be repairers of the breach. And so I think lawyers have a special talent and a special ability and a special voice to help us all in that.

So whatever your calling in the law is, I hope you will bear in mind the public good and the possibility of being a citizen lawyer in whatever calling you have. So thank you for having me here. And I guess we'll have some questions.

LESLIE KENDRICK: Mr. Kneedler, I think that you're among friends and kindred spirits where it's safe to admit you're a fan of administrative law. I think there are many of those in the audience. And it's really fascinating to hear about all the changes that have occurred in the law during your tenure at the solicitor general's office.

But one thing that has stayed the same and, really, remained constant is the SG's office commitment to providing non-partisan representation for the United States, regardless of cause, regardless of the political leadership of the other two branches. And I wondered if you could talk to us a bit about how the SG office does that and why that's important.

EDWIN S. KNEEDLER: Well, it's critically important to us to be straight shooters in terms of the facts in a case, in terms of the law. If there's an embarrassing part of the case or embarrassing fact, we want to make sure the court knows it. We're not keeping anything from it. And we try to do the best job we can in terms of developing the law.

Now, I think it's important to understand that our office is, in many ways, reactive. We are not developing the positions ourselves. Normally, we're-- if it's a challenge to an agency rule or an agency program, in the first instance, that agency will have adopted the program through the notice and comment rulemaking or whatever process it has to go through. And so the job of the Justice Department is to defend what that agency has done within limits. There are certainly things-- arguments that we end up not making that the agency might have made, or maybe we made them in the district court, but we'll decide not to make them on appeal.

But in that respect, the cases that we have are representing the product of the administration's policy implementation through the agencies. That's not true of all cases. There are some issues that don't originate that way. Antitrust cases, civil-- a lot of civil rights cases come up either by affirmative enforcement by the Justice Department or private plaintiffs. And a lot of those cases we will get in as an amicus.

But even there, we get the input of the agencies that are responsible for that area of the law and their input. So sometimes, there are disagreements. And the solicitor general has to work that out or decide what arguments to make, what arguments not to make.

So we are lawyers for the United States. And the administration in office is the ultimate determiner of what the interests of the United States are. But it's been-- I think that the process I was describing tends to ventilate the issues. And of course, what's happened before, what precedents there are in the agency or courts, are an important guide for us in that.

LESLIE KENDRICK: You've worked under many presidential administrations. But you've also worked with many different solicitors general. How does the solicitor general affect the nature of the office, the priorities of the office? Can you say a little bit about what it's like to transition from one solicitor general to another?

EDWIN S. KNEEDLER: Well, in terms of the priorities, as I said, to some extent, we're facing a fire hose. So whatever comes at us, whatever is due tomorrow or today, is the priority. So some of that we don't have any control over. But the different solicitors general have different approaches to the job. Some want to closely review every merits brief we file, others less so. They want to concentrate on particular cases. And they have different working styles in terms of how they like to word things, what they think of various legal doctrines that are usually not, I wouldn't say, political, but just their philosophy.

But I think all the solicitors general, in my experience, have come into office with the same sense of the offices of trust that I was describing as the attorneys. I think they come in with a real feel that this is a special place. I guess I'm saying that because I work there. But I do believe it's a special place and it has special responsibilities. And it's important to maintain the esprit de corps. And our SGs over the years have really paid attention to that.

So the differences in the-- that happen are, in many respects, personal style, but not, in the end, major determinants of how the office operates. Some want strict deadlines to get a draft to them. Others are more casual about that. But those are things that we can try to cope with.

LESLIE KENDRICK: You've recently announced that you'll be retiring from the SG's office after the end of this term. And you mentioned a bit of advice for our law students here. But I wondered if, at the conclusion of this part of your career-- if there's any more advice you'd like to give to our law students as they embark on their careers?

EDWIN S. KNEEDLER: Well, one of the things I think about from when I was in law school-- I don't remember talking to faculty much. And I don't know whether that was just me, that I was a shy guy or whatever. But I don't remember having-- even with professors that I had classes with, I don't remember that many visits. And I would encourage-- and my guess is there's a lot more of that now than there used to be because of writing and all of that. But I would-- to whatever extent you're not doing it, I would really encourage you to do it.

And one of my regrets here, speaking of administrative law, is, while I was here, Carl McFarland, who was one of the drafters of the APA-- was his last couple of years on the faculty here. I never talked to him. And it would have been-- I don't know that it would have occurred to me to ask him at the time because Chevron hadn't been decided. But did the drafters of the APA think about deference to agency decision-making? And he probably would have had some insights on that. As it turns out, there's almost nothing you can find in the background of the APA on that question.

So I wish I had known him and come to know him. He was actually responsible for me getting my clerkship because Judge Browning, for whom I clerked, was from Montana. He was from Montana. And now, as fate would have it, my brother, who I said taught here, got Carl McFarland's office chair, which he has now given to me. So it's come full circle in that way.

So that's one. Another is, and I think this is something that your generation is different than mine-- is try different things. I think people, when I went to law school, thought they were making a commitment for their career, that they had to say, I'm going to do this forever. When we hire, we don't want people to say, we're going to leave next year.

But we're open to the idea that people may come into the government for five years and leave, which is good for the office. You get fresh input. But it also-- you have alumni who go out who have an understanding of the way the government works. So it's all part of the system lawyer thing I was describing.

So I would encourage people to be open to possibilities and don't feel like you have to do only one thing. Some of you may not have choices or have other circumstances that don't allow you to move or to do a low-paying public service job. But within the flexibility you have, I would encourage you to do things.

My VISTA experience was mind-altering for me, even-- or altering, even though what I've done in my life hasn't had much to do with migrant farm workers. But it gives you-- gave me an appreciation for the other side of cases, which is an important thing, I think, that we need to develop, which is we're all in this together, even though we may be on the opposite side of a case. And we're all part of a process that is leading us to a more perfect union, which means a union in which we are coming together, not apart.

LESLIE KENDRICK: That's wonderful.

--your mentors. We're so grateful to you for joining us and for being our recipient of this medal this year. So thank you so much.

EDWIN S. KNEEDLER: Thank you.

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