Thomas G. Hungar is a partner in the Washington, D.C., office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP and Co-Chair of the firm's Appellate and Constitutional Law Practice Group. His practice focuses on appellate litigation, and he assists clients with complex trial court litigation matters as well. He has presented oral argument before the Supreme Court of the United States in 24 cases, including some of the most important patent, antitrust, securities, and environmental law decisions issued by the Court in recent years, and he has also appeared before numerous lower federal and state appellate courts. Mr. Hungar was nationally ranked as a top Appellate attorney by Chambers USA: America's Leading Business Lawyers for 2009.
Mr. Hungar served as Deputy Solicitor General of the United States from 2003 until 2008. In that position, he supervised business-related appellate litigation for the federal government, with particular emphasis on intellectual property, antitrust, securities, and environmental appellate cases, and he also oversaw appellate litigation in banking, bankruptcy, tax, government contracts, communications, labor, and international trade matters. He had responsibility for more than 50 of the business-related cases decided by the Supreme Court during that time period, and has briefed and argued many high-profile matters. According to ABC senior legal correspondent and former Supreme Court reporter Jan Crawford Greenburg, Mr. Hungar “dazzle[d] the justices with his arguments” before the Court. Representative cases in which he has presented oral argument before the Supreme Court include:
Before serving as Deputy Solicitor General, Mr. Hungar was a lawyer with the Washington, D.C., office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher from 1994-2003, practicing appellate and complex civil litigation. He represented clients in a wide variety of appellate matters in both federal and state courts, including the areas of constitutional law, employment law, product liability, telecommunications law, intellectual property, administrative procedure, antitrust, insurance coverage and bad faith, and general commercial litigation.
Mr. Hungar is a frequent lecturer in his areas of expertise and has appeared before such organizations as the American Intellectual Property Law Association, the American Bar Association Section of Antitrust Law, the Federal Circuit Bar Association, and the New York Intellectual Property Law Association. He is a Master in the Edward Coke Appellate American Inn of Court, and serves as a member of the Amicus Committee of the Federal Circuit Bar Association. While at the Department of Justice, he served as Appellate Counsel to the Intellectual Property Task Force Executive Staff, and he was awarded the John Marshall Award for Outstanding Legal Achievement, the Department's highest award presented to attorneys for contributions and excellence in legal performance, in recognition of his handling of patent-law matters before the Supreme Court.
Mr. Hungar served as an Assistant to the Solicitor General of the United States from 1992-1994. In that position he presented oral argument before the Court in six cases and handled numerous other appellate matters for the government. He also served as a law clerk to Justice Anthony M. Kennedy of the Supreme Court and to Circuit Judge Alex Kozinski of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He received his law degree from Yale Law School in 1987, where he was a Senior Editor of the Yale Law & Policy Review. He received his bachelor of science degree magna cum laude in mathematics/computer science and economics from Willamette University in 1984.