This summer, Ilana Eisenstein L’04 joined a small group of elite government lawyers when she took a job at the Office of the Solicitor General. Eisenstein is now one of 16 full-time attorneys, who — along with four deputies and the Solicitor General — conduct government litigation in front of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Because of the small staff and the heavy workload, the Office of the Solicitor General looks for lawyers with strong academic records, service as a clerk to a federal judge, and appellate litigation experience. Assistants to the Solicitor General, like Eisenstein, draft briefs and assist the other attorneys in the office in preparing for arguments, as well as arguing in front of the Supreme Court themselves.
Assistants generally have the opportunity to make one argument in front of the highest court in their first year, then two or three each of the following years. Eisenstein will likely make her first argument in March 2015.
Eisenstein spent her entire career in federal government service. After graduating from Penn Law, she clerked for Judge Edward R. Becker of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
Amy Wax, Robert Mundheim Professor of Law and a former Assistant to the Solicitor General who argued 15 cases in front of the Supreme Court, encouraged Eisenstein to apply for a Bristow Fellowship. Eisenstein was selected for the prestigious fellowship and spent a year assisting the attorneys in the Solicitor General’s office.
Following her Bristow year, Eisenstein took a position as an Assistant U.S. Attorney with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Delaware, where she was a criminal prosecutor and the office’s co-appellate chief. She served in that position until last summer, when she joined the Solicitor General’s office.
Eisenstein credits her professors at Penn Law, including David Rudovsky, Tom Baker, Seth Kreimer, and Frank Goodman, with getting her interested in criminal and constitutional law. “There’s a large background that you need to know,” said Eisenstein, “and I felt prepared from Penn Law to start down that path.”
And she knows that arguing in front of the Supreme Court is a distinct privilege. “I know not many people get to practice constitutional law for a living,” she said, “but I’m lucky to get to do it.”
Eisenstein has seen a strong level of commitment to public service in the lawyers she’s worked with throughout her career. In every government office she’s ever worked in, she noted, her fellow lawyers were working very hard to do the right thing and interpret the law in the right way. While the media may showcase people taking extreme positions, she said, in practice, her colleagues have been “hardworking, conscientious, and talented.”
Looking back at her own career path, Eisenstein encouraged law students to pursue the areas of law that are personally meaningful. “Having that goal is the first step,” she added. “It can be done.”
And beginning this summer, Eisenstein will be joined in the Solicitor General’s office by another Bristow Fellow from Penn Law, Parker Rider-Longmaid L’13. Rider-Longmaid, following in Eisenstein’s footsteps, was recently selected as part of the newest group of Bristow Fellows.