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Peter D. Keisler
Nominee to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of
Columbia Circuit
- Peter Keisler is a well-respected attorney and former senior official in the Department of
Justice who possesses extensive trial and appellate litigation experience in a broad range of issues.
Mr. Keisler has argued before the Supreme Court and numerous federal courts of appeal.
- Mr. Keisler has been nominated to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit,
which hears appeals from the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and reviews numerous decisions made
by federal administrative agencies.
- Mr. Keisler has a distinguished record as a practicing attorney in the
public and private sectors.
- From September - November 2007, Mr. Keisler served as Acting Attorney General. In 2003, Mr. Keisler
was confirmed as Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division at the Department of Justice. He was
responsible for the work of the Justice Department's largest litigating division, consisting of approximately
700 attorneys who represent the United States in federal and state courts throughout the country. In this
capacity, Mr. Keisler personally argued numerous cases in federal courts on behalf of the United States.
- The cases handled by the Civil Division involve issues of constitutional, statutory, regulatory, and
common law, including matters of tort law, contract law, bankruptcy, intellectual property, immigration, foreign
law, civil fraud enforcement and civil and criminal enforcement of consumer protection laws.
- From 2002 to 2003, Mr. Keisler served at the Department of Justice as Principal Deputy Associate Attorney General,
and for six months during that period as Acting Associate Attorney General, the third-ranking position in the
Department.
- In that capacity, Mr. Keisler assisted in managing the Department's civil litigating components
(Antitrust, Civil, Civil Rights, Environment and Natural Resources, and Tax), as well as assisting
in the development and implementation of a wide variety of civil justice initiatives and policies.
- From 1989 until 2002, Mr. Keisler was first an associate (1989-1993), and then a partner (1993-2002), at
the Washington D.C. office of Sidley Austin Brown & Wood. While in private practice he successfully argued
cases at every level of the federal court system, including the U.S. Supreme Court. His area of specialty
included regulatory appeals before the D.C. Circuit, the court to which he is nominated, where he argued
numerous times.
- From 1986 to 1988, Mr. Keisler served as an Assistant Counsel and later Associate Counsel in the
Office of the Counsel to the President in the White House.
- Mr. Keisler has impeccable academic credentials and professional
training.
- Mr. Keisler served as a law clerk to Justice Anthony Kennedy of
the United States Supreme Court and to Judge Robert Bork of the
United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
- He received his J.D. from Yale Law School in 1985, where he was
an officer of the Yale Law Journal.
- He attended Yale College and graduated magna cum laude in
1981 with a B.A. in Political Science.
- Mr. Keisler has used his legal skills to assist clients on a pro
bono and reduced fee basis.
- While in private practice, Mr. Keisler successfully represented
Dr. Elhadi Omer Abd Elhalim, who helped expose the mistreatment
of political prisoners at a Sudanese prison, in seeking political
asylum in the United States.
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