Jeffrey Clark

Assistant Attorney General, Environment and Natural Resources Division

U.S. Department of Justice

Jeffrey Clark was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on April 17, 1967.  He is a graduate of Harvard University (A.B. in economics and history, 1989), the University of Delaware (M.A. in urban affairs and public policy, 1993), and the Georgetown University Law Center (J.D., 1995).

Mr. Clark began his career working for the State of Delaware’s Department of Finance, Division of Revenue as an economics analyst in the field of tax policy.  During his tenure from 1989 to 1992, he authored several white papers analyzing Delaware revenue sources.  Delaware also selected Mr. Clark to submit an economic report and affidavit to the United States Supreme Court in the original jurisdiction case of Delaware v. New York, 507 U.S. 490 (1993).

He entered Georgetown’s law school in 1992 where he earned honors as an articles editor of the Georgetown Law Journal, an Olin Law & Economics Fellow, and a member of the Order of the Coif.  From 1995 to 1996, Mr. Clark clerked for Judge Boggs of the U.S. Court of Appeals of the Sixth Circuit.  Mr. Clark then joined the law firm of Kirkland & Ellis as an associate from 1996-2001.  He worked as an appellate litigator on numerous Supreme Court and other appellate cases and developed expertise in administrative law, statutory interpretation, as well as antitrust, labor, environmental, and telecommunications law.

Mr. Clark went on to serve in ENRD from 2001-2005 as a Deputy Assistant Attorney General selected by Attorney General Ashcroft and Assistant Attorney General Tom Sansonetti.  In that capacity, he supervised ENRD’s Appellate and Indian Resources Sections.  He reviewed, edited, and contributed to virtually every brief that ENRD filed in the Courts of Appeals, including several cases of exceptional significance that he personally briefed and argued.  During his service in the early 2000s, Mr. Clark argued and won numerous cases in multiple U.S. Courts of Appeals and worked on all Supreme Court cases arising out of ENRD’s work.

In 2005, Mr. Clark returned to Kirkland & Ellis LLP as a partner, where he litigated until his return to ENRD in 2018.  There he worked on numerous multi-billion-dollar matters and continued to argue many appellate cases.  His practice operated at all levels — appellate litigation, trial court litigation, agency proceedings, and regulatory and litigation counseling.  He has been named a Super Lawyer for multiple years running, highlighted in the Legal 500, named to the “Legal Who’s Who for Environmental Law” in Corporate Responsibility Magazine, rated A.V. preeminent by Martindale Hubbell, and named a member of the National Association of Distinguished Counsel’s Nation’s One Percent.  He also was named one of America’s Top 100 High Stakes Litigators.

President Trump nominated Mr. Clark to be the Assistant Attorney General of the Environment and Natural Resources Division (ENRD) on June 7, 2017.  He was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on October 11, 2018 and sworn into office on November 1, 2018, followed by an investiture ceremony on November 15, 2018.