Neal Katyal Age, Caste, Wife, Children, Family, Biography & More

 

 

Some Lesser Known Facts About Neal Katyal

• Neal Katyal is a former American acting solicitor general of the United States. He works full-time as Paul Saunders Professor at Georgetown University. He specialises in constitutional law, criminal law, and intellectual property. Since September 2011, he has been working as a Supreme Court Lawyer and Partner at Hogan Lovells, an American-British law firm co-headquartered in London and Washington, DC.

• According to Neal Katyal, when he was studying at Dartmouth College, he was a member of the fraternities Sigma Nu, Phi Beta Kappa, and the Dartmouth Forensic Union.

• Neal Katyal worked on the Yale Law Journal’s editorial board when he was a law student. There, he worked under the academics, Bruce Ackerman and Akhil Amar. In 1995 and 1996, they collaborated to write papers in legal and political opinion periodicals.

• In 1995, after completing his Juris Doctor (JD) degree, Katyal began working as Judge Guido Calabresi’s legal clerk at the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Later, he worked as Justice Stephen Breyer’s law clerk at the US Supreme Court.

• Once, in a media conversation, Katyal narrated that he liked wearing a Sikh bracelet that his father once gifted to him. He said,
  

  I am someone who believes in ritual. I wear the exact same thing to the court every time: my dad’s Sikh kara bracelet, socks my mom gave me, a tie my aunt gave me and a suit I bought a while ago.”

  

  Neal Katyal’s post on Twitter while showing his bracelet

• In 1999, Neal Katyal was invited to submit a report by U.S. President Bill Clinton on the importance of performing additional pro bono legal work. Soon, he established the guidelines for special counsels in the same year. The Mueller investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election was conducted under those guidelines. In 1999, Neal Katyal represented the deans of numerous prestigious private law schools in the Grutter v. Bollinger case and acted as co-counsel for Vice President Al Gore in the Bush v. Gore case.
  

  Mueller’s reporting into Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election

• In 2006, Katyal critically argued against the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. In a court case called Hamdan v. Rumsfeld in 2006, he represented the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. The court ruled that the military commissions set up by the George W. Bush administration to try the prisoners were against the rules of the UCMJ (Uniform Code of Military Justice) and the four Geneva Conventions.
  

  A picture from the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in the U.S.

• From May 2010 to June 2011, Katyal worked as the United States acting solicitor general under the Obama administration. Prior to this, Katyal worked as a lawyer in the U.S. Justice Department’s office of the Solicitor General and as its Principal Deputy Solicitor General.

• Neal has extensive knowledge in the areas of tribal, criminal, employment, corporate, patent, technology, and law.

• While working for the Justice Department, Katyal argued a number of issues before the Supreme Court, notably Northwest Austin v. Holder (2009), where he successfully defended the legality of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In the same year, Elena Kagan, the replacement for retiring Associate Justice John Paul Stevens on the Supreme Court, was chosen by President Barack Obama, and Katyal took her place as Acting Solicitor General.
  

  A press conference during the Northwest Austin v. Holder in 2009

• On 24 May 2011, Katyal gave the opening speech in the Department of Justice’s Great Hall to commemorate Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month while serving as Acting Solicitor General.

• In 2015, Katyal returned to Georgetown University Legal Centre after leaving the Obama Administration, and he joined the prestigious international legal firm Hogan Lovells as a partner.
  

  Neal Katyal while delivering a lecture at Georgetown University to the law students

• In 2015, he appeared in the third season of the American drama series House of Cards. Katyal had a brief cameo appearance in the series in which he portrayed a defence attorney during a Supreme Court argument.
  

  Neal Katyal in a still from the series House of Cards

• Katyal was honoured with the Grand Prize Litigator of the Year award for 2016 and 2017 by American Lawyer Magazine in 2017.

• In 2017, in an op-ed piece for The New York Times, Katyal supported President Donald Trump’s nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. In 2019, Katyal praised Brett Kavanaugh’s appointment to the Supreme Court by President Trump.
  

  Katyal, front centre, who argued against the Trump administration in the case Trump v. Hawaii, speaks to members of the media outside the Supreme Court

• In 2020, Katyal worked as a lawyer for Nestle and Cargill in a court case called Nestlé USA, Inc. v. Doe. The case involved a group of enslaved children, who were once made to work on cocoa farms in the Ivory Coast. They sued Nestle and Cargill together in a class-action lawsuit.
  

  Neal Katyal in the Supreme Court during the Nestle and Cargill case

• Besides being a lawyer, Katyal is also a spokesperson. He delivered a speech about ‘How to win an argument (at the US Supreme Court, or anywhere)’ at TEDx Talks on 4 August 2021.
  

  Neal Katyal at the sets of TEDx

• In 2021, Katyal worked as a lawyer for a big financial company called Citigroup. The company wanted to get back $900 million that was mistakenly transferred to the creditors of a company called Revlon Inc.

• In October 2021, he started working part-time at Galaxy Digital as a Board of Advisors.

• Neal Katyal joined the board of Social Capital Ventures Inc. in 2022 and is a partner in Chamath Palihapitiya Social and Capital Partnership.

• He has spent many years as Special Prosecutor for the State of Minnesota in the murder of George Floyd (2020). He is the author of a best-selling book with the New York Times. He authored “Katyal, Neal (November 26, 2019). Impeach: The Case Against Donald Trump.” Neal co-wrote Impeach: The Case Against Donald Trump with Sam Koppelman in 2019, following accusations that Trump had sought out foreign involvement in the election to aid his reelection campaign. The book opened at #2 on the New York Times Best Seller list in the same year.
  

  The book titled Impeach – The Case Against Donald Trump by Neal Katyal

• Neal Katyal likes listening to music in his leisure time. He often attends live music concerts in the U.S. and shares it on his Twitter handle. He remains active on his Instagram account.
  

  Neal Katyal’s post on Twitter while attending a live music show in Virginia

• Katyal’s wife, Joanna Rosen, practices the Jewish faith, and his brother-in-law, Jeffrey Rosen, is a well-respected figure in the American legal field.

• In the Moore v. Harper case, which involved election law, redistricting, and the independent state legislative theory, Katyal argued on behalf of the respondents before the Supreme Court in 2022. In the same year, Katyal defended Johnson & Johnson in a legal case in which the business was accused of marketing carcinogenic talcum baby powder.
  

  A Moore vs Harper banner unfurled during the case

• In 2023, at 52, he has argued more Supreme Court cases in the history of the United States than any other minority lawyer. In 2023, he surpassed Thurgood Marshall’s record. He has argued 48 cases in front of the U.S. Supreme Court till June 2023.

• Neal Katyal enjoys alcoholic beverages occasionally.
  

  Neal Katyal (right) while enjoying alcohol

• In order to inform people and solve their concerns, he runs a daily post-election litigation explanatory series on Instagram and YouTube called ‘Courtside.’ Neal frequently contributes to the New York Times and MSNBC, and once, he was named one of GQ’s Men of the Year.
  

  Neal Katyal on the banner of Courtside

• Once, in a media conversation, Neal Katyal discussed the U.S. Supreme Court lawyers that he admire the most. He explained,
  

  Michael Dreeben, who’s the Deputy Solicitor General in charge of criminal matters. Maybe the only person who’s kind of like him is Paul Clement. There’s also a phenomenal lawyer, Peter Keisler, who practices at Sidley and Austin. Cate Stetson has unparalleled rhetorical skills. Pratik Shah is in this camp, too. In the new up-and-coming generation, I think Elizabeth Prelogar, Colleen Sinzdak and Morgan Goodspeed.”

• Neal Katyal often appears in live news shows as a panellist.
  

  Neal Katyal while on a new channel