Patricia A. Millett heads Akin Gump’s Supreme Court practice and co-heads the firm’s national appellate practice. She has argued a total of 30 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and approximately 30 in the courts of appeals. She has briefed scores of cases in the Supreme Court and appellate courts across the Nation.

From August 1996 to September 2007, Ms. Millett served as an Assistant to the Solicitor General in the Office of the Solicitor General at the U.S. Department of Justice, in Washington, D.C. During that time, she was awarded the Attorney General’s Distinguished Service Award for representing the interests of the United States Government before the Supreme Court in July 2004, and the Environmental and Natural Resources Division, Special Commendation for Assistance and Support in the Activities of the Division, in September 2005.

Prior to her employment with the Office of the Solicitor General, Ms. Millett worked for four years in the Department of Justice’s Civil Division, Appellate Staff, where she briefed and argued more than 20 cases before the federal courts of appeals and, occasionally, state appellate courts. Before that, she clerked for two years for the late Judge Thomas Tang, on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. She also worked for two years in the litigation department of a Washington, D.C. law firm.

Ms. Millett received her B.A. summa cum laude with highest distinction in political science in 1985 from the University of Illinois and her J.D. magna cum laude in 1988 from Harvard Law School. She is a member of the District of Columbia and Massachusetts bars.

Ms. Millett was named by Washingtonian magazine as one of Washington’s 100 Most Powerful Women (2011), in which the magazine reported that she “is known as a persuasive writer and an eloquent arguer.” Washingtonian also named Ms. Millett to their 2011 list of Washington’s Best Lawyers for her Supreme Court work. She was also named by the National Law Journal as one of Washington’s Most Influential Women Lawyers (2010), and by Am Law Litigation Daily as “Litigator of the Week” (2010) for her successful, closely watched and highly publicized argument before the 2nd Circuit in the matter of Securities and Exchange Commission v. Galleon Group, et al. One of her Supreme Court briefs is featured in the book, Point Made: How to Write Like the Nation’s Top Advocates by Ross Guberman (2011). She has been recognized by Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business in the area of appellate law (2009-2011), by The Best Lawyers in America in the area of appellate practice (2012), and has been listed by Washingtonian magazine and Benchmark Appellate as a top lawyer in the areas of Supreme Court and appellate practice.

Ms. Millett is a Member of the Supreme Court Fellows Commission (by appointment of the Chief Justice); a Fellow of the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers; a Board Member of the Dwight D. Opperman Institute of Judicial Administration at New York University Law School; a Member of the Outside Advisory Board for the Georgetown Law School’s Supreme Court Institute; a Member of the Board of Trustees of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights; a Master in the Edward Coke Appellate Inn of Court; and a member of the Virginia Bar Association’s Appellate Practice Committee.

Ms. Millett regularly speaks on Supreme Court practice and appellate advocacy issues in forums nationwide. Her written works include “‘We’re Your Government and We’re Here To Help’: Obtaining Amicus Support From the Federal Government in Supreme Court Cases” (The Journal of Appellate Practice and Process, Vol. 10, No. 1, Spring 2009); “Mixed Signals: The Roberts Court and Free Speech in the 2009 Term,” Charleston L. Rev., Vol. 5, Fall 2010); and “Crumbling Cornerstones: The Evolution of Preemption Law in the Supreme Court’s 2010 Term,” Legal Backgrounder (Washington Legal Foundation, vol. 26, no. 22  Sept. 23, 2011).

Ms. Millett’s oral arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court include the following—

• Filarsky v. Delia, No. 10-1018
• Gonzalez v. Thaler, No. 10-895
• Samantar v. Yousuf, et al., No. 08-1555
• United States v. Stevens, No. 08-769
• United States v. Clintwood Elkhorn Mining Co., No. 07-308
• Blessing v. Freestone, No. 95-144
• Kalina v. Fletcher, No. 96-0792
• Ricci v. Village of Arlington Heights, No. 97-0501
• Bank of America v. 203 North LaSalle Street Partners, No. 97-1418
• INS v. Aguirre-Aguirre, No. 97-1754
• Norfolk Southern Ry. v. Shanklin, No. 99-0312
• Reeves v. Sanderson Plumbing Prods., No. 99-536
• City of Indianapolis v. Edmond, No. 99-1030
• Shaw v. Murphy, No. 99-1613
• Young v. United States, No. 00-1567
• Devlin v. Scardaletti, No. 01-417
• Gonzaga Univ. v. Doe, No. 01-679
• Washington Dep’t of Human Servs. v. Keffeler, No. 01-1420
• Nguyen & Phan v. United States, No. 01-10873
• Illinois v. Lidster, No. 02-1060
• Office of Indep. Counsel/ Nat’l Archives & Records Admin. v. Favish, No. 02-954
• KP Permanent Make-Up v. Lasting Impressions, No. 03-409
• Small v. United States, No. 03-750
• Gonzalez v. Crosby, No. 04-6432
• Dolan v. U.S. Postal Service, No. 04-848
• Arkansas Department of Human Servs. v. Ahlborn, No. 04-1506
• Washington v. Recuenco, No. 05-83
• Safeco Ins. Co. v. Burr, and Geico Ins. Co. v. Edo, Nos. 06-84, 06-100
• Fry v. Pliler, No. 06-5427
• Sole v. Wyner, No. 06-531.