Katsas then entered private practice at the Washington, D.C., office of the law firm Jones Day, where he specialized in civil and appellate litigation.[7] He argued more than 75 appeals, including three cases in the U.S. Supreme Court.[5] He was at Jones Day from 1992 to 2001, becoming a partner in 1999.[6]
On October 17, 2017, a hearing on his nomination was held before the Senate Judiciary Committee.[10] On November 9, 2017, his nomination was reported out of committee by an 11–9 vote.[11][12]
He is currently considered the top “feeder” judge, sending the highest number of his law clerks to clerk on the Supreme Court since his appointment to the bench in 2018. Katsas “has sent at least 18 of his law clerks to the high court since the October 2019 term,” according to National Law Journal.[17][18] Legal commentator David Lat has stated Katsas “feeds so much that he also exhibits breadth, placing clerks with Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Alito, Kavanaugh, and Barrett.”[19]
Notable cases
In 2017, Katsas recused himself from matters regarding the Mueller probe on which he personally worked, but said he would consider the facts of a case before making a decision.[20]
On September 9, 2020, President Trump included him on a list of his potential nominees to the Supreme Court.[21] He has been suggested as a potential nominee in a second Trump administration.[22]
On July 6, 2021, Judge Katsas gave the tie-breaking 2-1 vote that overturned the FDA's ban on GEDs used predominantly by the Judge Rotenberg Center on disabled patients in Canton, MA.[23]
On April 7, 2023, Katsas authored a dissent in United States v. Fisher, a case interpreting whether January 6 participants could be charged under 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c), a provision of the Sarbanes–Oxley Act enacted to combat corporate fraud that penalizes anyone who “otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding.”[24] Rejecting the government’s argument, Katsas argued that interpreting “the structure and history of section 1512, and with decades of precedent applying section 1512(c) only to acts that affect the integrity or availability of evidence” suggest that the government’s reading is “implausibly broad and unconstitutional in a significant number of its applications.”[25] On appeal, the approach of his dissent was adopted by the Supreme Court in an opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts.[26]
