WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Department of Justice on May 14 announced that Solicitor General Paul D. Clement will resign on June 2.

Nominated by President Bush on March 14, 2005, Clement was confirmed on June 8 of that year and sworn in on June 13.  Before his confirmation as the 43rd solicitor general, he served for more than four years as principal deputy solicitor general, and during that period served for nearly a year as acting solicitor general.

Clement’s tenure of more than seven years in the Office of the Solicitor General is the longest period of continuous service in that office since Samuel Phillips, who served from 1872 to 1885.

During his time in the Office of the Solicitor General, Clement argued 49 cases before the Supreme Court.  Cases argued by Clement include Tennessee v. Lane, McConnell v. FEC, Rumsfeld v. Padilla, Gonzales v. Raich and Gonzales v. Carhart.  He also argued many other cases in both the Supreme Court and the lower courts involving legal issues related to terrorism.

The Office of the Solicitor General is responsible for conducting all litigation on behalf of the United States in the Supreme Court, and for supervising litigation in the federal appellate courts. Oral arguments for the 2007 Supreme Court term were completed in April.  The department will submit all of its briefs for action during this term by the end of May, it said.

Clement is a native of Cedarburg, Wis., who received his bachelor’s degree summa cum laude from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service and a master’s degree in economics from Cambridge University.  He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, where he was the Supreme Court editor of the Harvard Law Review.

Clement clerked for Judge Laurence H. Silberman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and for Associate Justice Antonin Scalia of the U.S. Supreme Court.  After his clerkships, he worked as an associate in the Washington, D.C., office of Kirkland & Ellis. 

Clement served as chief counsel of the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution, Federalism and Property Rights.  Afterwards, he was a partner in the Washington, D.C., office of King & Spalding, where he headed the firm’s appellate practice.  Clement also served from 1998 to 2004 as an adjunct professor at the Georgetown University Law Center, where he taught a seminar on the separation of powers.

Clement joined the Department of Justice in February 2001.