The former Solicitor General of West Virginia, Elbert chairs the firm’s Issues and Appeals practice. He has led many precedent-setting cases in appellate courts across the country, including a US Supreme Court victory called “the court’s most severe rebuke of a president” since the Truman administration (The Washington Post 2016). Elbert has been described by clients as a “terrific oral advocate” (Chambers USA 2021) and an “amazing thinker [and] strategist” (Chambers USA 2024).

With experience in the private sector and multiple branches of government, Elbert’s practice spans a wide range of issues, including major questions of constitutional and administrative law at the federal and state levels. He has argued more than 60 cases in state and federal appellate courts, including before the US Supreme Court and several en banc courts of appeals.

In 2013, Elbert was appointed the Solicitor General of West Virginia. During his four-and-a-half year tenure, Elbert served as a member of the Attorney General’s senior management team, oversaw all civil and criminal appeals, and supervised the state’s federal litigation. He authored more than 25 briefs in the US Supreme Court and more than 45 formal Opinions of the Attorney General.

Earlier in his career, Elbert was a partner in the appellate and communications litigation groups of a national law firm and served as a trial attorney in the Federal Programs Branch of the US Department of Justice’s Civil Division, where he received a Special Service Award. He has also been a law clerk at all three levels of the federal judiciary: for Justice Clarence Thomas on the US Supreme Court; for Judge William H. Pryor Jr. on the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit; and for Senior Judge Robert E. Keeton on the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts.

Elbert speaks regularly on a wide variety of topics, including constitutional law, administrative law, environmental law, state and federal relations, the US Supreme Court, and appellate practice. He has testified before Congress, and has spoken at the national conventions of the American Bar Association, the Association of Corporate Counsel, the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association, the Federalist Society, Americans for Prosperity, and the American Legislative Exchange Council.

Elbert is admitted to practice in the following federal courts: the Supreme Court of the United States; the First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, Ninth, Eleventh, D.C., and Federal Circuits; and the U.S. District Courts for the District of Columbia, the District of Massachusetts, the Eastern and Western Districts of Virginia, and the Northern and Southern Districts of West Virginia.

Jump to Page