Clark Neily

The Supreme Court vs. Leviathan

Clark Neily is senior vice president for legal studies at the Cato Institute. His areas of interest include constitutional law, judicial engagement, coercive plea bargaining, police accountability, and gun rights. Before joining Cato in 2017, Neily was a senior attorney and constitutional litigator at the Institute for Justice and director of the Institute’s Center for Judicial Engagement. Neily has been an adjunct professor at George Mason’s Antonin Scalia School of Law and the University of Texas and is a frequent lecturer and panelist for the Federalist Society. Neily received a Bachelor of Arts in Plan II (with concentrations in philosophy and Russian) from the University of Texas at Austin, and he also received his law degree from the University of Texas, where he was Chief Articles Editor of the Texas Law Review.

Neily is the author of Terms of Engagement: How Our Courts Should Enforce the Constitution’s Promise of Limited Government (2013). He has written dozens of law review articles on topics including economic liberty, free speech, judicial engagement, gun rights, government accountability, and coercive plea bargaining, and he has contributed chapters to several scholarly volumes, including “Three Cures for Coercive Plea Bargaining” (The Cost of Plea Bargains: Reflections from the ABA Plea Bargain Task Force); “Beware of Prosecutors Bearing Gifts: How the Ancient Greeks Can Help Cure Our Addiction to Excessive Punishment” (The Palgrave Handbook on the Philosophy of Government, with Chris Surprenant); and “A Libertarian Vision for Criminal Justice” (Visions of Liberty—Libertarianism.org).

Neily was co-counsel in watershed case District of Columbia v. Heller, in which the Supreme Court held for the first time that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to own a gun at home for self-defense. Neily has litigated or helped litigate a variety of other high-profile constitutional cases and was on the trial team in the infamous property-rights case Kelo v. City of New London, in which the Supreme Court upheld the use of eminent domain for economic development.

Neily lives in Arlington, Virginia, and is married with two children whom he homeschools with his wife, Nicole. He enjoys traveling abroad with his family, cooking, hiking, and creative writing.

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